DoomSaga I: The Book of the Tarot, PART ONE
by DoomScribe
Summary: Before there was Doctor Doom there was his father, Werner von Doom, and his mother, Cynthia.  Who were these lost gypsy souls who would create between them the greatest villain of the Marvel Universe?  And what demons would haunt them? An untold tale.
1. Chapter 1 The Page of Pentacles

DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT

_Chapter One The Page of Pentacles_

**April, 1942. Yugoslavia.**

The dark haired boy rose from the pile of leaves where he'd made his bed, and shook the sleep from his clothes. He sat down on a log after he'd rolled up his blanket, and drank a little water from a skin as he chewed thoughtfully from a bit of hard tack. The morning air was still and cold, his breath made wisps of steam as he ate, but he didn't make a fire. The remnants of last night's small fire were black and cold at his feet. He needed to be up and away soon. The weak light of the morning sun filtered through the forest. The evergreen trees that had held their ground through the long winter would soon be crowded out by leafy aspens and oaks that were just beginning to wake up for the coming spring. Patches of snow still lay in shadowy spots beneath the trees, but bits of green were poking through the leaf litter. The forest was quiet, as if he was the only soul in the world alive right now. That was a good thing; he didn't want to meet anyone if he didn't have to. The boy shuffled around to clear all sign of his presence from the campsite.

The droning sound of a lone airplane breaking the quiet of the forest caused him to gaze skyward in a moment of panic. He hunched down beside the fallen log. But the Luftwaffe had completed their bombing mission here a year ago, and occupied Yugoslavia was peaceful as long as you weren't a Jew or a Gypsy. The German army would hardly see fit bother a small boy and his pony anyway. Still, the specter of a threat impelled the boy to be on his way quickly. He gathered the small white pony he called "Ghost", and began his search through the forest in earnest.

His mother hadn't wanted him to go. But Queen Victoria needed him. He knew that the old gypsy lady wasn't really _the_ Queen Victoria. He wasn't really sure who Queen Victoria was, but he had an idea that there was someone by that name who lived in a castle with knights and piles of gold riches in a place called England. But England was being bombed too, so he wondered if that place was still there. Anyway, if the old woman whose face was more wrinkles than skin wanted to be called Queen Victoria, it didn't matter to him one way or the other. If she had another name, he didn't know it and she didn't share it. Besides, he knew it would be rude to ask. Gypsies often took names that they fancied. It was one of the ways they snubbed their noses at the authorities that tried to count them or hem them into the rules of respectable stable societies that they could understand. The gypsies were forever taunting them with their rules, and doing their best to ignore them. Even though he was just a boy, he understood the irony of it.

Queen Victoria had called him into her caravan two days ago. Her eyes were always on the weather: she could taste the dirt and know when the flowers would bloom. She watched the birds for signs of early thaw, and could smell the rain long before it came. She was the tribe's healer, and he was desperately trying to learn all she knew before she went on to the great beyond. He had decided long ago that his calling was to be a healer also. His father would ask him every day, "Is that old woman dead yet?" as he absently whittled on a piece of wood for a new marionette. And whereas the boy knew that his father, coarse and rough as an old wooden fence post, was only joking, the truth of it was that no one really knew how old she was. Yes, he was joking, but only a little bit. Yet she had knowledge that surpassed all of the elders combined. And she had chosen him to pass on that knowledge. He was learning as fast as he could.

The boy was bright, smarter than most of the others his age in the tribe. He could read, and write, one of the few in his tribe who could, thanks to his mother. He spoke two languages well, and two more he knew enough of to get along. He was still scrawny, his head too big for his shoulders, and he was constantly pushing the black fall of hair back from his eyes. But the gypsy life was a hard one, and the muscles in his arms and shoulders were beginning to show that he would soon be a strapping young man. If he lived that long. Their life was a precarious one, Queen Victoria would often tell him. The darkness could come for them at any time.

The Great War seemed far away from their valley, but they had heard the news and seen the signs of destruction in familiar places, and everyone in the tribe knew that it could engulf them at any moment. It seemed to the boy that it had been going on for as long as he had been alive, at least as long as he could remember. He didn't know what peace was, he only knew the fear and anxiousness that made the adults wary and cautious, suspicious of strangers and avoiding all soldiers. That was what he knew of life. But here in the valley they were safe, for as long as the Baron and his ilk let them be. It was one of the last safe places, and everyone knew it.

As bad luck would have it, one of the shepherds had taken ill over the winter. Queen Victoria had been tending him the best she could, but her supplies were low after the long cold winter, and because of the war they had not traveled to where those supplies could be replenished, as they usually did. She had waited as long as she could. Spring had not yet arrived in the valley, shadowed on all sides by the high Balkan Alps. The old gypsy healer knew that south over the pass, and down into the foothills, the plant she called Chuska, would be blooming. Within the crushed petals was the medicine that would cure her patient, combined with the right amounts of herbs and brewed into a tea. But the Chuska would not bloom in their valley for another two months, and that would be too late.

"Little bird," she told him, using her pet name for the boy, "I would fly away myself, but these old bones will fail in those high roads. We do not suffer the ice well these long days." She wrapped the shawl tighter around her tiny shoulders, as if to ward off a deathly chill.

"I can get the Chuska," he had told her. And she smiled, an eerie sight that he had gotten used to, with the wrinkles on her face folding into each other so that it looked like her face might disappear completely. She still had most of her teeth, a fact attributed to her strict caution against eating any sugar. Her teeth looked small and yellow against the pale pink gums, but her blue eyes still twinkled with delight.

Father had shrugged and said it was fine with him if the boy went. Mother protested, surely someone else could go? But with the shepherd ill, his sons were busy with the new lambs being dropped in the flock, and they needed healthy lambs to pay the Baron, lest they find themselves evicted from the valley. The other men were too slow or dumb to go. And everyone was afraid of the Nazis. They all had heard what the Nazis were doing to gypsies. No one wanted to leave the sanctuary of the valley. Latveria, small, remote and isolated by the high mountains that surrounded her, had thus far remained free of the war that terrorized the rest of Europe. What deal the Baron had made to make it so, no one knew. Perhaps there was nothing here anyone wanted. That was fine with the gypsies who sheltered here, but to a people who had traveled the depth and breadth of Europe it had made their world painfully small. Those that once wandered far were now forced to stay, waiting out the war and praying.

"I'll be gone three days, that's all," the boy had told Mother. "I'll stay in the woods where no one will find me. I know the way. The Germans won't care about one small boy in the forest." His Mother, who was half German herself, had relented. He was growing up too fast for her, but his arguments were sound. Gypsy boys were notoriously independent, and to go off alone in the forest for a few days at his age was not that unusual. Except now there was war, and times were changing. But the fates were conspiring against her, so she relented. She insisted on cutting his hair and making him wear a new sweater, anything that would make him look less like a gypsy. And she would worry about him until he returned.

The boy didn't ride his pony that morning, choosing instead to lead the fat little mare by her lead rope as he searched through the forest undergrowth for the plants that would save the shepherd's life. He quickly found a large patch of Chuska, just where the old woman had told him to look. The small purple flowers were peeking through the undergrowth around a tight cluster of flat, thick green leaves still moist with the morning dew. He harvested them as the healer had shown him, careful not to crush the blossoms as he put the whole plant into his shoulder bag. He cleared out one patch then moved on to find some more, until he was certain he had enough. It was midday by then. As he continued kicking through the undergrowth around the base of a large oak tree, he found the other treasure he was looking for. The deep musty smell of the fruited mushrooms was unmistakable. The small black truffles were a prized delicacy in the markets of the rich. The gypsies wouldn't use them, but the boy knew that he could sell them at market, and the money would bring needed supplies for his mother and father. He dug around the base of the tree with his hands until he uncovered the fruited body of the forest fungus, and carefully wrapped the delicacy in a bit of white cloth. He placed them in his bag next to the Chuska.

The quiet of the forest was broken again, this time by the caw of a flock of crows bursting into the air overhead. The boy jumped onto the back of Ghost, the little pony bucked a little bit, but then settled down under the firm pressure of the boy's knees. He trotted her through the trees until he could see what had disturbed the birds. Up ahead there was a road, and he could see the dust coming up the hill from a jeep that was rapidly passing below him. He stayed out of sight behind the trees, but the soldiers were too busy to even look up from their passage. He looked further down the hill, and realized that he was closer to the village than he had thought. He watched as the green jeep sped out of the forest toward the village. Down there, along a narrow river, was a cluster of a few small dirty houses, smoke rising from their chimneys. A few people were walking about, women with baskets, a man leading a donkey, two children playing around a toppled fence. There was a large stone church there, a bright spire piercing the sky. The jeep sped through the village, scattering the villagers as it passed, and then stopped at a low building next to the church. The two soldiers jumped smartly out.

The crows above him were still protesting as the boy stood there, lost in thought. He had not planned to go home tonight, it would be too risky with the pass still frozen in the grips of winter and the day was nearly half done already. He chewed on a piece of stick as he thought, his legs lazily draped over the bare back of his pony. The little mare stomped her foot and swished her tail impatiently. He decided that he didn't like the elder woman's nickname of little bird for him any longer. He wanted to be known as "crow", and he smiled. He would be bold, and raucous. And fly away hurling curses if he was challenged. He lifted the bag containing the truffles, and another plan began forming. He didn't see the danger of it, this sleepy little village. Even the soldiers didn't seem that threatening. Besides, there were only two of them.

The boy tied his pony up next to a fence on the outskirts of the village, and walked into town like he owned the place. His shoes were worn and dirty, but his sweater was neat and he had a cap that he pulled down tight about his eyes, so that no one could see them darting about assessing the situation as he walked. He didn't want to look lost; he had to look like he belonged there. He steered well clear of the church and the ominous green jeep that was parked there. Some children his age had gathered around the jeep with curiosity, so they didn't notice him as he passed. He had watched the village from the hillside so he already knew where he needed to go. He arrived at the grocer's place, and straightened the sweater. He would be in and out in no time at all, but there was still a nervous tickle at the back of his neck. Before he lost his nerve, he opened the door and walked in.

The place was long, dark and grimy, the windows at the front the only natural light. There was a single electric lamp with a bare bulb overhead, and an oil lantern sputtered on a table near the back. Some wilted old vegetables were arrayed about in a cart at the center of the floor, and there were canned and boxed goods on the shelves behind it. There was some type of food service here as well. A row of tables lined the walls on the left. On the right halfway back was a bar. Two men chatted with the man who must be the shop keeper, and the chef as well by the greasy apron that he wore. The men were leaning against the tall bar, their dirty boots propped up on upturned milk crates on the floor. Four men sat at a single table near the back, their heads low over cups of steaming beverage. The boy saw it all at a single glance, but no one looked at him as he entered.

A woman came in from the back, popping brightly through a swinging door. Her crisp white dress was an incongruous sight in this dungeon of a store. She too wore an apron, also white with little blue flowers embroidered on the trim, and her dark hair was neatly tied up under a white linen cap. She saw the boy and smiled, then turned to cleaning some of the old vegetables out of their display cart. He guessed she was about his mother's age, and she would be far easier to do business with than the sour old man behind the bar.

"Excuse me miss," he said politely, "my papa has sent me to sell some mushrooms."

"Oh?" she said. "Who's you're papa, then? I don't recall seeing you around here before."

"We've not been here before," he said, comfortable with a little bit of the truth. He had known that she would ask, but he didn't elaborate. The less she knew the better, and as long as he appeared sincere she wouldn't question further, he hoped. He opened his sack and pulled out the cloth he had wrapped around the delicate truffles.

"Oh," she said again, but this with a hint of surprise. Then she examined his crop with an expert eye. "These are very good, you're lucky to get them so early."

The boy shrugged, then said, "We have a pig," knowing that pigs were legendary at finding truffles. He would not reveal to her that he was gypsy, and that gypsies read the signs of the forest like other men read a newspaper. Gypsies don't need animals to tell them where to look for such things. So the story of the pig was another clever lie.

One of the men at the counter guffawed loudly, and said, "Tell your father to sell the pig, we could use some fresh bacon around here."

"Quiet, Leonid," the woman chastised. "We'll be happy to buy these," she said to the boy, "let me get my purse."

But before she could move, the door opened again, and four tall men walked into the store behind the boy. He knew right away, he didn't have to turn around. The expressions on the faces of the men around him told the tale. It was the German soldiers, and the boy watched as the three pairs tall black boots strode past him as if he wasn't there. The two men at the bar didn't bother to finish their drinks; they gathered their coats around them and headed for the door, painfully careful not to brush past the soldiers. One of the soldiers sat at a table by the door, lit a cigarette, and propped his boots up on an empty chair. The man behind the bar scowled, but held his ground as another soldier stepped smartly to the bar. The soldier reached behind the bar for a bottle, pointedly ignoring the bar tender, examined it, and then poured himself a drink into a small glass tumbler. The boy stood as still as a mouse in the center of the room, barely breathing, his heart pounding in his chest.

One of the soldiers strode up to the vegetable cart. He removed an apple, bit it, then spat it out and threw it on the ground. The fourth man began pulling food off of the shelves, a loaf of bread, some cans, a box of biscuits, and a tin of fish. He put them into his rucksack straight away, as if he didn't need to pay for them. The woman gasped, and then tried to protest. Her mouth opened. "No, no no," the soldier wagged his finger at her. She stepped back, silent.

At the back table, one of the four quiet men started to stand, but one of his companions grabbed him by the arm. The boy saw their momentary struggle out of the corner of his eye. It was a quiet protest, wordless glances passing between them as if they were speaking in code. The one that had stood slowly sat back down.

The soldier at the vegetable cart suddenly noticed the boy, still holding his prized truffles in his hands. "Hey, Brezh, look here," he said in German, as he strode up to the boy and knelt down to look closer. "Ah!" was his surprised explanation. Brezh, the other soldier with the rucksack had a similar expression, but he reached out to take the truffles from the boy, opening his pack expectantly. The boy looked into that open pack, and saw that there were more than just groceries in it. A hint of gold caught a bit of light, something that looked like a chalice, and a silver candlestick. The boy thought about the church where he'd seen them park their jeep, and his quick mind knew where those items had come from.

The boy suddenly found his courage, or perhaps it was foolishness, but he stepped back and covered the truffles in the bit of cloth, pulling them away from the outstretched hand. "No!" he said, his voice firm if a little higher pitched than normal.

"Now, see here …" the first soldier's Slavic was stilted and rough.

The boy answered him in German, "Not for free. You must pay for them!"

"Ah!" the soldier exclaimed with surprise for the second time. The soldier still smoking at the table laughed shortly behind a puff of smoke, a deep acidic guffaw. The soldier from the bar stepped up to join the other two.

"What have we here?" the third soldier spoke. His uniform bore insignia that the others did not, and the boy could tell that they answered to him.

"The boy has truffles, Herr Captain," the first soldier explained.

"Indeed," the Captain said. "Let me see them, boy"

The boy opened the bit of cloth carefully so he could see, and reiterated, "Not for free, you must pay." But he had lost a little of his bluster under their withering scrutiny,

"We don't pay, little man," the Captain said, leaning forward. "We have conquered this pathetic little backwater country. We did it in a week. That is because we are the master race. So give us those little gems, or we'll take them from you."

"No!" the boy said again, and stuffed the package back into his bag. The woman, still standing there and pale as ice, gasped. But he held his ground.

"So," the Captain said, standing back up to assess the boy from his full height. "Where are you from, little one? Where is your mother? What is your name?"

The boy chose to answer only one of the questions. He said, "My name is Krahe", using the German word for crow, "and if you won't pay for them I will find someone who will!" He turned as if to go, but the one called Brezh grabbed him by the shoulder and tried to pull the bag from off his back. "No!" the boy cried out.

"Insolent brat!" the soldier said. "Give that to me!"

There was a brief scuffle, and the boy fell to the ground. He could hear the smoking man laughing again, his boots hit the floor as he cheered Brezh on, chastising him good naturedly for being bested by a child. They wrestled over the bag but the boy wouldn't let go. If they took the bag they took the Chuska, and his trip would have been for nothing. Then the boy heard a new voice, German, but a strange accent that he didn't know. "Let the boy go."

The tug at his shoulder loosened, and the boy scrambled away, looking back to see that the four men who had been sitting at the table in the back were now surrounding the three Nazi soldiers. The fourth soldier by the window stood up, but one of the four strangers moved closer to him, ominously. They had no weapons that the boy could see, but somehow they were standing up to the soldiers. The soldiers had stopped, surprised at the intervention, but they didn't seem impressed. The tall blond haired man was holding onto a startled Brezh by the back of his collar. Brezh's rucksack with the stolen loot had fallen to the ground.

"What is this?" the Captain said. "Let go of my man!" he ordered officiously. His Slavic was better than the others, but the big man didn't care to comply either way. "Is this the Resistance?" the Captain snorted. "Or a pack of dirty farmers? What will you fight with, your stench?"

"Careful, Cap …" one of the men said, in English. "Quietly."

The boy gasped, and the soldiers did too. The soldiers stepped back, but this time to draw their weapons. The woman screamed. Somebody yelled a bad word. There was something strange about the four men, but the boy realized what was really strange was that they weren't afraid. Hunched down by the floor under the bar he didn't really see what happened next. There was a round shield that came out of nowhere, he saw red, white, and blue, emblazoned with a star, there was a burst of flame, and another man seemed to suddenly hover above the floor. Shots were fired. Fists were flying, bodies fell to the ground with a thud. The boy wasn't going to stick around. In the midst of the melee he saw an opportunity and an opening, but before he fled he grabbed the rucksack that the soldier called Brezh had dropped on the floor at his feet. Then he bolted for the door. He rationalized stealing it, because they would have stolen from him. Besides, this way his adventure wouldn't be a total loss, as long as he could get out of there alive.

He was out in the street when another army jeep came tearing around the corner. It was followed by a second one, both screeched to a halt in front of the store. How they knew what was happening at the little store, he didn't know, but the four men inside that store were about to be overwhelmed four to one as armed soldiers went charging blindly into the little shop. The odds didn't seem to matter, as the boy ran down the street he looked back to see a pile of German soldiers come rolling out the door almost as quickly as they had charged in. They were followed by an amazing sight, a man, at least the boy thought it was a man, who was completely on fire!

The boy turned then and ran as fast as he could toward where Ghost was tied up, blissfully munching on a bit of grass by the fence post. He leapt atop her wide back, then looked back once more. Whatever was going on back there, the Germans were too preoccupied to chase after him. Sounds of gunfire rippled down the street, followed by cries of agony from the German soldiers. Whoever those strange men were, they must be winning. He hoped they were, but he wasn't going to stick around to find out. His heart was beating like a gypsy drum in his chest, but he indulged in a bit of bravado.

"My name is Werner Von Doom!" He shouted back at them with his fist raised above his head. He did not care if they could hear him or not. "And I am _Zefiro_!"

He turned and urged Ghost into a gallop, charging up the road as fast as her little legs could take her. He would risk the pass tonight, he didn't dare stay in this country any longer than he had to. "The cold may be the death of me," he thought woefully to himself, "but better than to be captured!"

He kicked his mount onward and upward, off of the road and onto the narrow path that lead to the mountains. The little pony did her best, the climb through the pass was long and hard. As the sun and the last vestiges of warmth disappeared to the west, the reckless gallop turned into a trot, and then a long, laborious walk. For many hours he listened for signs of pursuit, but none came. The lights in the village were long hidden by the forest, and the road was far behind him. He traveled a path barely visible, known only to the gypsies and the mountain people. He still did not stop, he dared not.

He pulled out his blanket, and wrapped it around him to stave off the bitter cold, and begged the little pony to keep going. Ice crunched beneath the pony's hooves, but she did not slip nor falter. Thankfully the weather stayed clear, and a moon that was nearly full lighted their way. But once above the trees, the full strength of the cold bore down upon them like a heavy anvil. As the adrenaline of his flight from the village wore off, the boy's bravado disappeared, and turned to shaking. The gravity of the danger he had been in started to bubble to the surface. He felt the overwhelming urge to cry a little, but fought it down. Still he couldn't stop shaking. Cold and shock were setting in. Alone in the dark, he just wished for his mother's warm embrace. As far as he could tell, it was well past midnight when he reached the top of the pass. Icy clouds that always hovered around these high peaks obscured the valley below and behind, and he felt himself drifting off to sleep as they started down, down, down.

The pony knew the way. Sometime later she stopped, he knew not how long it had been or where he was. But strong hands lifted him off of her back. He felt them strip the reins from his clenched fist and someone carried him into the warmth of a gypsy caravan. A distant voice murmured instructions to boil water. His shoes came off, and more blankets wrapped around him. He was shivering and delirious. An enveloping warmth radiated from somewhere around his feet. He finally stopped shaking. The lights dimmed. He let sleep come fully then.

Werner was a strong boy, and by midday the next day he'd fully recovered. Queen Victoria smiled at him, the Chuska had already been mixed into a tea, and the sick shepherd was showing signs of recovery. He gave her the truffles as well, she could use them or sell them, it mattered not to him. He had the stolen German rucksack as his bounty.

Werner waited until he could go through the contents of the stolen bag alone. In his long flight from the village he hadn't once opened it up to look inside. No one asked him where he got it from, and he told no one of his adventure in the village. No one would question him about it, it was not their way. Good fortune was a gift not to question.

Werner laid out the contents upon his blanket, and decided what to do with each item. He gave the food to his parents, for which they were grateful. He would get to share in some of that too, and that was a good thing. He saved two apples for Ghost, a special treat and a reward for her having seen him safely down the mountain. There was a fine shirt, too big for him, he gave it to his father. The golden goblet and silver candlesticks gave him pause though. He hadn't thought much about God or religion in his short life, but from what he knew he thought that it was sinful to steal from a church, and perhaps he should take them back. He didn't know if he ever would have the nerve to go back there, though. Still, he hid them away someplace safe for now. There was also a pistol in the bag, something he hadn't seen at first. It had a long narrow muzzle and a rounded grip, with a full clip of bullets hidden in the boxy part in front of the trigger. There was an iron cross engraved in the handle. It was sheathed in a neat leather holster. He decided to show it to his papa. His father looked closely, silently at the gun, his weathered face grimacing but curious as his rough hands held the weapon. He decided that he would keep it safe for the boy, but told him that it would always be his if he ever needed it. He would show him how to use it, but they must never let anyone outside of the tribe know that they had it. This was a serious thing, and Werner nodded solemnly that he understood.

The last thing in the bag was a bit of an enigma to Werner. It was a blue ball, or a kind of marble, but larger than a marble, like the size of a small lime. It was hard, like glass, but warm. It glowed, as if from inside. Werner held it in his hand, passed it back and forth. He looked deeply at it, mesmerized by the glow and the way the light seemed to move inside it. He felt … he felt a connection to it. It was very curious. This he would keep for himself. This and the rucksack, which was a very nice bag, much better than the old tattered shoulder bag he had used to gather the Chuska. He used a knife to tear off the Nazi insignia that were embroidered on the side of the thick denim straps. It would be a useful thing, and he would get many years out of it. He would keep the blue ball in one of the pockets, but that one he would never show to anyone. It was his secret.


	2. Chapter 2 The Nine of Wands

DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT Chapter Two The Nine of Wands

**Hungary, 1956**

The bonfire lit up the night sky in the middle of the field, and the free flowing beer and wine warmed the insides of the men and women camped out around the roaring blaze. The campsite had swollen to twice its normal size, and there was laughter and music from every quarter. There were the usual scattering of tents and caravans, horse drawn gypsy vardos, and ox-carts. Mixed in were a few old cars, bicycles, even a pair of motorcycles with side cars that might have been German models, left over from the Second Great War. There was a group of emboldened young men, hastily putting together an effigy of Chairman Khrushchev to set upon the growing blaze. They were unwisely lubricated by the free flow of drink, their wild youthful spirits, and the remoteness of the gypsy camp. They had forgotten that the secret police of the Soviets were still here, in a country only just newly freed from Soviet control. They would have their moment of glory, but at what cost?

The swarthy man with the full beard and bright red _keffiyeh_ or head scarf stood on the perimeter of the revelers atop a small rise in the meadow near a broad oak tree. He had a long wooden staff jammed into the dark earth at his feet, and he leaned on the stick pensively. His dark eyes surveyed the scene under bushy eyebrows, and those eyes sometimes caught fire with the reflected light of the bonfire. Though his eyes barely moved, from his vantage point he could see all he needed to see. His mouth was set in a grim line. He didn't seem to be enjoying this at all.

A younger man walked briskly up the slope toward the bearded man under the tree. "I'm sorry," he said breathlessly as he got closer to his older friend. "I'm sorry, Boris," he repeated, looking back at the bonfire just as more wood was added in a shower of sparks and drunken cheers and laughter. He added with quiet exasperation, "I don't know how this got so out of control. There weren't supposed to be so _many_!" The young man removed his hat, and brushed back a thick lock of wavy brown hair from his eyes before returning the wide brimmed hat to his head. He was little more than twenty years old, tall and lean, broad of shoulder and skin tanned but pale next to the swarthy Boris. He still had an almost angelic quality to his face, the soft fuzz on his chin showed the beginnings of a beard that would never quite fill out. But his gray green eyes were worldly and wise under his youthful countenance, and his hands were calloused by hard physical labors that his scholarly companions had never known.

Boris nodded his head at the younger man's apology. "They are young," he said quietly, "and spirited."

"Yes, but it was only supposed to be a few of them!" the young man said frustrated. "Look, I'm going to tell them to get out of here and go back to the school. Franz and Gregorio are just going to have to pack up their friends and leave you in peace. I don't know how I could have been so stupid as to lead them out here!"

Werner was a smart young man, and he was now weighing the wisdom of this evening's decision. He had tried these past few years to disappear, to stay as inconspicuous as possible. He was on his own, and he knew that the world was a hostile place to gypsies; he'd known that fact all his life. No more so than now, when the Soviet secret police had made people less conspicuous than he disappear into gulags or worse. He had counted on his anonymity, and when he left the comfort of his tribe and family, he had bought his freedom for the price of two silver candlesticks and a golden goblet.

Werner Von Doom had left his home in Latveria at age 17. His mother had died two years prior, in a late in life pregnancy that would have given him a sister. Her death had cemented his desires to further his studies in the field of healing and medicine. To do that he had to seek it outside of their sheltered life in Latveria. Like many of his kind he was no stranger to border crossing or forged papers, and he always held in reserve a little of that money that would buy him passage when he needed it. He learned how to blend in, to cross borders where there was no scrutiny, and to disappear into the melee of cities struggling to recover from a great war. There were thousands of Germans in those first few years, fleeing their ruined homeland and the burgeoning threat of the Stalin regime. He wanted nothing more than to continue his studies, to learn all the western world could teach him. But how was a gypsy boy, a man without a country, without any money to speak of, nor papers that verified his education, how would he do that? He'd worked it out long ago. He would pretend to be someone else. So he disappeared, hidden among the throngs of homeless refugees.

He'd been doing it successfully it for the past six years. He wasn't sure where it would get him, but he knew that knowledge was power, and so he soaked it all in like a sponge. Those gleaming white washed universities, those halls of marble, and vast libraries of knowledge was where he could gain that knowledge. His skill with language was sometimes all he needed, and he found that with the right amount of charm and confidence, he could easily open doors that were once the domain of only the rich and the elite. Once he was in, he would blend in with the other young men and women, never excelling, never drawing attention to himself. But he was always a serious, self-directed student. He knew just how long to milk it, before slipping away into the dark and disappearing.

Werner had first gone to Yugoslavia, and then crossed into Austria with refugees seeking asylum from the new bloc of Soviet controlled satellite states and their ever tightening borders. He had crossed West Germany amidst what would soon be millions of displaced Germans, and then wandered as far west as France. He had attended small and large schools at all of the countries he passed through, filling in the empty seats for as long as he dared during the day, and working menial jobs at night to pay for his food and lodging. He never had more than he could carry in a sturdy satchel and a simple bed roll tied with rope, but his clothes were always clean and neat, and his face scrubbed and his hair combed. He connected with gypsies all along the way, finding their scattered camps by word of mouth and his own well-honed instincts, welcoming their shelter when no other could be had. Then the Cold War and the deadly regime of Stalinist Russia descended like a toxic cloud all around them, and it was words of alarm from home that had brought him back into the Balkans. He began working his way east through Switzerland, crossing the Italian Alps into Austria and then back into Hungary and a growing undercurrent of revolution against the Warsaw Pact and Soviet domination of the Eastern Bloc states.

During his travels, he had been witness to the changes in Europe following the end of the Second World War. He had seen the damages done, both to the landscape and the cities, and to the psyche of the people who had lived through a horror few could dare imagine. In the past year or two he had begun practicing the arts of healing, using the skills he had learned at the foot of his mentor, tempered with the new knowledge he had gained in the schools and books of the west. His reputation among the gypsies had been slowly building, and they were seeking out his healing ministrations. His knowledge and leadership skill was growing as well, and when he stumbled upon Boris' campsite the skills he had developed helped delivered a pair of twins, set two broken bones, and cleared up a bad case of whooping cough in a frail young boy. He had also helped Boris with the paperwork and contacts he needed to get his daughter's family out of Soviet controlled Romania, just as they were beginning to learn the true meaning of the word "defect" and something that they would call the "Iron Curtain".

Now at the campsite in Hungary, it was Boris who needed to rescue young Werner. He placed a calming hand on the young man's shoulder, "No, Werner, it will be alright," he said. "Look, the gadje will pay for their frivolity. See? Ionnes is relieving some of them of their coins at the card table." Boris pointed to a small group of men gathered around a rickety wooden table lighted by a flickering lantern. There was much shouting and moaning as another hand went to the gypsy dealer. "Drina is in her tent with her cards, telling the young girls who among the men will be their lovers. With any luck, their memories of the night will be liberated by the drink, as the fortune teller has liberated them from their coin. You should join them Werner, pour the wine, make sure they have a good time." He looked kindly upon the young man. "You should try to celebrate as well, you spend too much time with your studies. Perhaps that young lady you rode with can ease some of the tension from your back, eh?" He added with a silent laugh, pinching the boy's shoulder good naturedly.

"Ah, you mean Anathalie," Werner answered flatly, then shrugged. "I think she's found someone else to pluck those fickle strings." His eyes found the girl sitting on the fender of one of the cars parked on the far side of the bonfire from where they stood. She was beautiful and dark, with an ample bosom that she displayed knowingly beneath her not quite so modest blouse. She had caught the attention of Franz and two more of his cohorts, and they were gathered around her like bees around a succulent flower. Werner was surprised to find that he didn't really care that much. He'd grown more than a little tired of her pouting and brooding, and the meager gifts he could afford seemed to bore her. She was after richer fare, and he thought he might as well let her have it.

"Ah ha," Boris answered sympathetically, "then you shall have to celebrate your freedom till another filly catches your halter," he added with a laugh. Then pointed to a smaller fire a short ways in the distance. "Perhaps that one has caught your eye."

Werner already knew of whom he spoke, he had seen her earlier that evening and found he couldn't take his eyes off of her. He had hoped that no one else had noticed, but perhaps Boris had a keener eye than he gave him credit for. He glanced over at the fire, catching a glimpse of whirling skirts dancing hypnotically to the beat of a gypsy drum. The audience around her was enraptured by her dance and the little cymbals that she clapped kept rhythm with her step. Werner turned away, and helped himself to some of the wine that Boris offered from a skin he carried.

He had been thinking about that girl all night as well. And though he had not spoken to her he had asked about her and heard some of the gypsies talking among themselves. She was new to the camp, traveling with her aunt, an older woman and talented weaver. But he overheard the other matrons of the camp gossiping about how the young girl was old enough to be married, but had no man and seemed to scoff at the advances of the young bachelors of the tribe. It was positively scandalous, the girl was nearly 18, and what was her guardian thinking? Letting her dance about in such a bewitching fashion, it wasn't proper. Then another woman had said, maybe she is a witch, and that had started them whispering and making warding signs with their hands. Werner hadn't wanted to hear anymore of that kind of talk, so he had wandered away from the fire to speak to Boris.

Werner drank deeply and handed the skin to Boris, who followed suit. He would have to steel his nerve a little longer before he dared face that alluring beauty. In the meantime, he changed the subject, grateful that Boris wasn't too perturbed over the crush of University students who had descended uninvited upon their campsite. "What word of you from your family?" he asked.

"My daughter and her husband will be safe in Latveria by tomorrow morning," Boris answered, "thanks to you. We will join with them in a fortnight, if the Baron hasn't stolen their horses."

Werner nodded, "And what word of father?"

Boris smiled, "He is well, he complains of the gout and doesn't walk very far, but he asked after you."

"Ah! Why doesn't he take that medicine I sent? He should stop eating so much salted pork as well, mother warned him about that years ago."

"Perhaps you can convince him to follow your advice when you return to Latveria."

Werner was silent for a long while, watching the flames of the bonfire and his friends from the school making complete fools of themselves. He finally answered, "I've decided I'm not going to come back this year. Now that the revolutionaries have won the freedom for Hungary, I've no reason to leave. I've come so far in my studies. I know this year will be the culmination of all I've worked so hard toward."

Boris sighed a little, the first sign of weakness he'd shown all night. "You must be careful, Werner. All is not as it seems with the rebellion against the Russians."

"What do you mean? They've won … we've won. Khrushchev has pulled his troops out. There has been talk of open trade with the west, even with the United States. We will be free."

"Gypsies, we will always be free," Boris said. "Hungarians, not so much."

"What do you know? Boris, what have you heard?" Werner knew, as did most of the other gypsies, that Boris was more than he seemed. He looked like a shepherd or a simple laborer, but his strong back was only one of his assets. He had kept his people safe thus far because he always had his ear to the ground, and he had a seasoned fighter's instincts for avoiding trouble.

Boris looked to the darkness beyond the campsite. "The secret police are still here," he said quietly. "The Soviet tanks are still within striking distance of Budapest. They are waiting, for what I do not know. But they have not withdrawn completely. The Soviets will not give up their prize so easily."

"It wasn't easy," Werner posited.

"Children with Molotov cocktails, throwing stones at the Soviet machine," Boris scolded. He nodded down to the boys dancing around the fire. "They will be dead or imprisoned before the year is out. Werner, you should not stay. It will not be safe, in the coming months I fear it will be so."

"I don't believe it," but Werner felt a chill down his back. Winter was coming fast. There was a long silence between the two friends.

Boris finally clapped his hand against the back of the other man's neck. "There is still tonight, young healer," he said with a laugh, "and no matter the future, the now is waiting for you down by that fire. And I feel a chill wind at my back that can only be warmed by the dance of the furies! Let us cast our caution to the wind, and warm our selves there among the people. The morrow will decide which way our caravans travel."

"The morrow will decide," Werner said, and he had to admit, the site of the gypsy dancer by the fire did light a pleasant fire in his belly. "Boris, what is her name?" he asked, as his eyes were once again captivated by the dancing girl.

"Her name? It is Cynthia." And there was a twinkle in his eye as he said it, as if he knew something that his young friend did not.


	3. Chapter 3 The Page of Swords

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT **

_Chapter Three The Page of Swords_

**Hungary, 1956**

The bonfire lit up the night sky in the middle of the field where the gypsies had made their camp for the past several months. The bonfire was a construct not of the gypsies but of their rowdy guests, twenty or thirty students had driven out from the University in the nearby city and crashed their campsite. Three of the boys had erected a crudely made effigy of Secretary Khrushchev, with a newspaper face plastered to its head under a pair of glasses, and a Russian flag, the infamous red banner, wrapped around its torso like a Roman toga. The boys from the school let up a raucous cheer when the effigy caught fire, and tossed their hats into the air with enthusiasm fueled by more than a little fine gypsy wine.

Cynthia could not care any less for politics or the feats of aggression these "boys" had been boasting of all evening. Some of the younger gypsy girls seemed to be far too enamored of the attention these _gadje_ were giving them, but she knew better. In the morning their hangovers will be as great as the girls' regret, and the boys will crawl back to the city a little lighter in the wallet if no more wiser in the head. At a smaller fire from the giant bonfire, the gypsy girl turned her attention to the music of her brethren, and the beating of the gypsy drum was enough to set her heart aflame. One after another a dancer would rise and try to match the drum and guitar with the rhythm of body and subtle movements of hands and feet. The crowd around the fire would join in with laughter and clapping in recognition of the ritual representations of sound and life and music that they all knew so well. Some of the dancers were neatly choreographed, with moves perfected from years of repetition, knowing just how to pull the audience in and manipulate them. Others were loose and spontaneous, feeding off the crowd and the musicians to interpret something new each time. But when she could no longer ignore the pull of the flame and the clapping of hands, Cynthia would join the dance, and it was all anyone could do to look away.

She knew it, of course, she knew that everyone there was watching her. But she couldn't stop it if she tried. The dance was like life, like living, it was the earth mother and the moon, it flowed out of her like a roaring river, it would not be denied and it couldn't be tamed. She didn't know where it came from, it just came to her. It was the only time and place that she could let herself go, just let her be as she was meant to be, free and unbound and alive with all the scents and sounds, and every breath and heartbeat and cheer soared with her through the clouds. She did not know what her dance meant to the men and women around her, she danced only to express what she felt and her connection to the world. Normally she didn't care who was watching and whether or not they approved of her dance. But that evening there had been one young man who seemed to fuel her dancing to even greater heights. She hadn't seen him before that evening but as she danced she kept finding his eyes on her, watching her so intently. And as she twirled around the fire she found that her eyes had met his again, even though she hadn't been seeking him out. It was as if the natural fall of her gaze was always landing on his eyes. If she closed her eyes, she would still see them, those calm gray eyes watching as if he could see right through her. The thought of it was not frightening but it was unsettling. Cynthia had seen men stare before, more and more as her body had filled in and matured, and when she saw those eyes staring she knew the lecherous thoughts behind them as if she was reading them from a book. She was well aware too, of the violence those desires could foment. These eyes were different, and she didn't quite know why.

As she danced she decided to study this one, this tall, cool stranger whose eyes she could not escape. It wasn't that he seemed different or strange. He was taller than most and strong of build, if only a little too thin. He wore a hat, but the dark hair underneath it curled down around his ears, stopping short of his collar. He was older than her, of that she was certain, and not as rowdy or uncouth as the other university boys, so she gathered that he was older than they were as well. Or at the very least, he was more mature, with worldly wisdom about his face, and a conservation of movement that betrayed his seriousness and focus. His face was calm and kind, his lips flushed and a wry smile showed his teeth as he spoke to someone standing near him in the crowd. His beard was only just filling in, and he wasn't fair but he had a pleasing color. That thought surprised her. She hadn't ever thought of someone's color as pleasing. She tried to put that thought behind her. She continued with her examination, never slowing nor pausing her dance as she did, and the sounds of the crowd and even the music seemingly faded away into the night. His clothes were plain, a little too worn, and the sleeves of the jacket he wore were too short for his arms. She laughed a little inside; he wasn't married, for surely no proper wife would let her husband's clothes be so ill fitting. He carried a satchel over his broad shoulder, perhaps his books or some important papers. He was an accountant. No, a lawyer. No, not right either. Maybe he was an art student, or … ah! He was the _healer_. She'd heard of him in the camp a few nights before but had not bothered to meet him. It pleased her to think that not only was he a man of some considerable skill, but that he was also a gypsy. For all this while she had thought that he was not, and now certain things about him seemed clearer to her then. Then she smiled, and just as she turned around the fire again, he wasn't there any more.

She panicked for a moment, and her steps faltered. She looked frantically through the crowd, but he had disappeared into the darkness beyond the fire. She felt a sudden sadness envelop her, and she continued her dance without missing a step, but without as much feeling. When the music paused she let someone else take a turn at the fire.

Cynthia sat down and positively pouted on a hay bale near the fire, clapping only half-heartedly to the rhythm as another song started around the fire. A young man she knew, Zygfried, sidled up to Cynthia after the dance, and tried to find a place beside her on the hay bale. But she ignored him and refused to move over. He stood there, wobbling unsteadily next to her around the fire. "You were so beautiful," he finally said, slurring his words. "I love … how you, dance …"

Cynthia sighed as she looked up at the boy, and rolled her eyes impatiently. He was her age but she couldn't think of him as anything more than a boy. He wouldn't leave her alone when he was sober, and now that he was drunk she feared he would be even worse. "For Christ's sake, Zygy, sit down before you fall down!" she scolded, never taking her attention off of the latest dancer.

Zygy swayed for moment, trying to focus on the place at her feet, where her fine ankle peaked out from under folds of her skirt. Finally, he fell to the ground, landing on his butt in the soft straw, then tipping over backward so that he almost upset the baker and his family who were sitting behind her. Some men standing further back laughed, and Zygy laughed, neglecting to apologize to the baker's wife, who slapped him on the back of his head. That caused another row of laughter and taunting from the back row.

"Maybe one of you hyenas can haul this poor fool back to his cabin," Cynthia said, standing up again. "Before he falls into the fire and ignites the liquor stewing in his belly!" She didn't mean to sound so shrewish, but her emotions were bubbling in her now and she felt a great swirling of events that was making her head spin.

There was more good hearted laughter and ribbing, and one of the big men from the back gingerly hauled Zygy back onto his feet. "I love you, Cynthia," Zygy said as he swayed in the arms of his burly rescuer. "Marry me! Cynthia!" he cried out after her as the other hauled him away.

"Oh, please," Cynthia raised her skirts and was about to leave when she saw a familiar face edging back into the crowd. The healer had returned! And Boris was with him this time. She had fully intended to leave, but was now torn. Hastily she joined the dance, as if that was what she meant to do when she stood up. This time her dance allowed her to flirt naughtily with a male dancer in a more traditional folk dance. It was a simple dance, that she knew how to make titillating erotic with just the slightest of gestures. There were cat calls and more laughter from the crowd, so she knew they caught her meaning. She made sure that the healer was indeed watching her. And then she stopped, not really sure why, and disappeared into the crowd on the opposite side of the fire from the tall gypsy healer.

A short while later she was someplace safe where she could stop and catch her breath. The caravan she shared with her aunt was far enough away from the fires and the noise to be peaceful and quiet, and she needed to think. She stopped in the doorway, it was pitch black inside. Her aunt was snoring in the bed at the back. She fumbled to her bed on the right, there was just enough light peeking through the open doorway to see, and pulled a blanket off of the bed. She kicked off her shoes, and then went back outside. From the small porch area and the steps leading down out of the caravan, she could sit in the shadow but still see the fires down below. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and stared out into the night, thinking. The stars above were blurred by smoke and clouds, she would not be able to divine their meaning tonight. But something was happening, it was happening now, and she feared that she wasn't ready. There was a chill wind blowing gently through the meadow, she shivered under the blanket, and waited.

Of course, he had followed her. But she wasn't fully prepared for him when the crunching sounds of his footsteps came out of the darkness beside their caravan, and she gasped a little in surprise to hear him so close.

Werner heard the gasp coming from the shadows next to the wooden sided caravan, and stopped, his eyes trying to pierce the darkness to see who was there. He was of half a mind to turn back, to rejoin his friends and forget this girl. This captivating girl, who was so beautiful, so dangerous, and probably so far out of his league as to be an impossible dream. What he knew of women so far in his life, and he had known enough women (though looking back he thought "girls") to know that even among the gypsies a man with little money to show for himself was not going to win the girls' heart and hand. What it took to win a woman's affections, what he thought, was what he didn't have: money, a good job, a place to call home. He had none of those things. He wasn't even sure where he was going to be in a year, or two years from now. What had he to offer? If Boris hadn't put a hand upon his back and pushed him out of the circle around the fire, he wouldn't have even followed her.

He had been watching her dance all night, slowly working up the nerve to go talk to her. And when she had stopped dancing and left the circle he was surprised at how quickly she had disappeared. But he wasn't the only one who'd been watching, his friends from the school, Franz and Gregorio, had come up from the big fire as well to watch the gypsy girl dance. Franz and Gregorio, who had promised him only a few friends would join them at the gypsy campground, and who must have told half the student body, judging by the throngs of revelers who had appeared that night. It could have been a disaster if the gypsies, in their usual good natured fashion, hadn't done their best to show the students of their host country a good time, and to turn a profit or two while they were at it. But earlier that night, Franz had also been getting far too familiar with the girlfriend Werner had brought as his date this evening. Not that Werner really minded anymore, he'd already decided that he wasn't rich enough for Anathalie, and by her actions that night it was clear that she thought the same. So he left her to her man-hunting, but it was still the principal of the thing, and Franz' ability to take advantage of his good nature was beginning to leave a sour taste in his mouth. Perhaps the quick witted Hungarian who'd promised to keep his secret was more of a load stone around his neck, than someone who was really going to help him reach his goals. It had left Werner wondering if his younger classmate was really a friend at all.

"That one, she is an exotic beauty, no?" Franz lifted a bottle in a mock toast to the vanished dancer. "I wouldn't mind sharing a taste of that one, my friend."

"What?" Werner asked, somewhat shocked at the tone, if not entirely understanding the intention of his words.

"Go on then," Franz urged. "Go on, you know you want to. And when you're done, come join us by the big fire." Franz lifted the bottle to his lips. "Bring her with you if you like."

Werner watched, equally dumbstruck and amazed at what his friend must be thinking. "What are you saying, Franz?"

Franz looked over his bottle at Werner's shocked expression and grinned seditiously. "Come now, Werner, you know what I mean. They're just gypsies, they're all whores and thieves here, we both know that." Franz was about to laugh. He was drunk enough to say it but he was sober enough to know what he'd said. But he was a big man, as tall as Werner but fuller, heavier and thicker. Franz was used to being able to say what he wanted with impunity, because he knew how to throw his weight around. It was the stupidest thing he'd ever said. Franz opened his mouth to laugh, the surest way he knew to make a slur into a joke.

Then Werner's fist connected with his chin. It was just one blow, it came fast and as a surprise, but that was all it took. Franz' knees buckled convulsively as his head was knocked back, and the beer bottle in his hand went flying through the air. He fell back onto the ground with a weighty thud, and Werner was on top of him an instant later, his knee on the bigger man's chest and his right hand cocked back in a fist. There was blood coming out of Franz' mouth, he'd either bit his tongue or lost a tooth, or both. Gregorio leapt forward in defense of his friend, and found himself held back by three or four large gypsy men, who'd seen and heard it all.

"You insult her and you insult me," Werner hissed at the man who lay prostrate and bleeding before him. "I am a gypsy too!"

Franz spat out the blood and raised his hands in surrender. "You're a stupid fool! I know who you are! I'll have you kicked out of school for this, Von Doom! She's not worth it, she's just another skirt."

Werner raised his hand again as if he was going to strike him, then decided better of it. He lifted his knee from Franz' chest to let the other man up, but his heart was still pounding with adrenaline. Prejudice against gypsies was something he knew, he'd heard the racial slurs and whispered epithets, and he knew that they were considered lower than dirt in certain circles. He had seen the gates of Dachau when he had passed through Munich, some of the tribe here had friends and relatives that died there during Nazi internment. But he had also tried to be "less gypsy" of late in order to avoid those prejudices. Now he was ashamed of that too. He was shaking in anger, his hands were shaking, and he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had to walk away, he may have ruined his chance at a future with that one blow, and he didn't want to make it any worse. His hand hurt, he almost broke his knuckles on that massive chin. Gregorio had helped Franz to his feet, but surrounded as they were, there wasn't going to be any more of a fight. Let them slink back to town and to school, and by Monday morning, he would know whether or not he could still be a tuition free student at the Medical School there. Werner felt sick to his stomach suddenly, and stepped far from the crowd at the center of the campground, slinking away into the cool darkness of the meadow. Then he saw her again, running toward a nearby caravan, and against his better judgment, despite all that had happened, he followed her.

Now he was about to turn back and leave.

"Don't come any closer," Cynthia said softly from the shadow. "My aunt is asleep inside."

He couldn't see her, so he stepped closer, trying to see where she was, and unwittingly ignoring her command.

"Did you not hear me!" Cynthia cried out. She slammed her foot against the flat of his chest with a whomp! From where she was sitting on the rear porch of the caravan, she only had to stick her foot out to stop him in his tracks.

"Ow!" Werner's cry was more of surprise than hurt. "Sorry, I can't see you. I couldn't tell where you were!"

"Close enough to kick you," was Cynthia's snide reply. With a strike of sulfur she lit an oil lantern hanging near the back stairs. The warm circle of light cast about the back of the ancient caravan and a crooked set of stairs made of cracked and weathered wood. Cynthia was still sitting on a narrow ledge with her back against the outer wall of the caravan. Her home was a basic wooden box on huge wood wheels, the kind that had been used by her people for centuries. Hers was gaily painted in green, blue and red, and although it was old before she was even born, she and her aunt had decorated the small windows in curtains and done their best to make sure the roof didn't leak. From where she sat on the ledge at the back of the caravan she could look the tall man directly in the eyes.

"What brings you to my home in the middle of the night, unescorted, healer?" she asked.

"I saw you dancing …"

"Lots of people saw me dance."

"Oh." Werner was at a loss but he couldn't help but smile at her spunk. She was turning out to be more of a surprise every second. She was unlike any woman he'd ever known before. He'd had enough of dull, stupid women who didn't know what they wanted. She was even more beguiling at rest than she was in motion. Even now, wrapped up in a big blue check blanket, with her dark hair falling all about her shoulders in a wild tangle of ebony curls, she was captivating. He was drawn to her eyes, dark and alluring under thick lashes. She saw him staring and they seemed to catch fire, or maybe it was just the light of the lantern flickering there. He took a step closer. "You don't strike me as the kind of woman who would need a chaperone."

Her foot swung out again and struck him in the middle of the chest, but not so hard this time. This time too, it caught him by surprise, but he also caught her by surprise when he captured her foot in his hands.

"Perhaps it is you who needs the chaperone, lest the old crones in the camp start gossiping about you consorting with old maids and witches." She tried to pull her foot away, but he held on, not hard, but firmly. His hands were rough and strong, not at all what she expected from a student or a healer.

Softly, almost absently, Werner began massaging her small bare foot, noting the strength in her arch, the delicate tarsal bones, the callus on her heel from too tight shoes, the smoothness of her skin. "I don't care what old crones and gossips say about me," he said, "is that what they say about you?"

"Didn't you know?" she asked, still trying to pull her foot away without appearing like she was struggling, and surprised at how … sensual … his gentle massage was. His hands were warm, and her feet were sore from the ferocity of the dance. If she didn't watch herself, she might just fall for this tall dark stranger.

"I want to know what you say, not the gossips," Werner said sincerely. "Tell me."

"What do you want to know?" she asked.

"Everything."

"I do not want you to own me," she almost pulled her foot away.

"How could anyone own you?" he answered seriously. "It would be like owning the wind."

She laughed, it was a sound like bells ringing. "I must have been mistaken," she laughed, "I thought you were the healer and it turns out you're a poet! Or a fool!" But she had begun to relax and she was enjoying the massage, even though it was practically sinful.

He laughed with her, and said, "Tell me where you're from."

So she told him of her homeland in Romania, and the death of her parents during the great war. She told him of their flight out of there, of fighting to get past the Soviet police, and being detained for a short while, before escaping and crossing into Transylvania and then almost dying in an attack of vampires.

"Vampires? Now you're pulling my leg," Werner answered.

"I could if you like," she replied innocently.

Werner decided to let it be, and went on, "So now it's just you and your aunt."

"She is the only family I've left," she answered sadly. "And what of you? Where is your family?"

"My father is still alive, he lives in Latveria where I was raised," he told her. "Cousins, somewhere, I don't really know."

"How is Latveria? What is it like?" she asked earnestly. "We will be going there soon, I think, so says Boris."

"Oh, it is beautiful, really, and so peaceful."

"I hear the Baron is a monster." She pouted, then pushed her other foot out toward him. "Do this one now."

Werner willingly complied, and then answered, "The Baron is not so bad, he's old. He and the other noble families, they're old too. If ever his sons take over running the country, look out then." He pressed firmly against her arch, noting a slight wince as he did so. "You need better shoes," he continued. "Tell me, how is it that you have not married yet?"

"Because I'm a witch," she answered, with a hint of annoyance.

"I don't believe that," he replied. "And even if it were true, so what? As long as you use your magic for good."

She didn't want to answer him at first, but then, she found that she really wanted to tell him everything. She chewed on the end of a strand of her hair, thoughtfully. "It is because of my aunt, I'm all she has left. She's kind and sweet, but simple. And no man will have her because the old women say she's barren. No man would have me if they have to take her as well, so we stay together."

"Ah, again with the old women telling people what to do." Werner was aware of the way things were in gypsy life. Women typically were treated the worst, and a woman alone and without a husband was outcast or "unclean". They had to take care of each other, but often the old widows and bitter gossips made things harder for them than it should be. Yet even his experiences with treating the poor and sick refugees all over Europe had taught him something even more profound, and that was that most women knew less about themselves and their bodies than one would suspect, even in these modern times. It was just a lack of information, and too few doctors to take care of them. The old superstitions persisted, the ancient taboos and rituals like jumping over a stick three times to ensure pregnancy, or placing a knife under the bed to ease the pain of childbirth. There were worse practices, some of which were even dangerous. His mentor, the old healer who had taught him, had tried to dispel some of these myths and teach a more practical, natural healing, and Werner had acquired an appreciation for the health of women from an early age. But the old ways persisted. He thought back to his own mother's death during childbirth, and how the old women had stubbornly kept him away when he knew that he could have helped her and his stillborn sister. Breaking down those cultural and religious barriers was hard, but the more he learned the more he knew that he could help, so he kept trying. And he was learning even more in the halls of science, and augmenting his teachings with practical experience. He had even helped deliver twins not more than a fortnight past, and the experience had left him breathless and exhilarated. If not to help bring life to this world, what good was all this learning he pursued?

"How old is your aunt?" he asked.

"She's old, I don't know, I think, 30, maybe," Cynthia replied.

"That old?" Werner laughed. "She could still have children, if she's healthy."

Cynthia looked at him, a strange puzzled look on her face. "Oh, she's healthy all right, she eats like a horse and she's strong. She even pulled a vampire out of a well where it was hiding all by herself!"

"Again with the vampires …" Werner sighed.

"It's true! I tell you it's true!" Cynthia protested.

"Ok, ok," he relented. "But see, if she's that healthy, and if nothing is wrong there is no reason why she couldn't … If you like I can examine her. As a doctor, mind you, just to see if there is anything that could be done for her." He didn't tell her that he doubted the diagnosis of the old women of the tribe, but it wouldn't be the first time they had been wrong. They had been wrong about the twins, and that had almost cost one of them their life.

"You would do that? You would touch her, even?" Cynthia knew that men often would not touch a woman who they thought was unclean.

Werner knew this superstition, too, and it angered him. How else would they get proper care? "Yes, of course I will. If she will allow it."

Cynthia chewed on her hair for a moment, then pulled her foot away abruptly. "You will come back and then we shall see." She stood up and opened the door to her caravan.

"Two days from today." She added turning around again to look down at him. That would give her enough time to check out the truth of his claims.

"All right," Werner answered. He decided he was being dismissed, and turned as if to go.

She blew out the lantern and then called out to him, "Healer! I wish to know your name!"

Werner came back a few steps into the dark and told her, "My name is Werner, Werner Von Doom."

She snorted lightly in the dark at the top of the steps. "That's not a very gypsy sounding name," she said critically.

"Neither is Cynthia," he answered smartly.

She laughed. He will do, just fine, she thought, and closed the door behind her. As she fell into her bed against the wall of the caravan, she pulled the blanket close up by her chin. The sounds of the party in the distance were slowly fading into quiet. And her feet felt positively wonderful.


	4. Chapter 4 The Lovers

DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT Chapter Four The Lovers

**Hungary, 1956**

Two days seemed to take forever for poor Werner. There could have been a war breaking out all around him, and still the only thing he could think about was a certain gypsy dancer and a promise to meet again in 48 hours. When he got back to school he looked at his father's timepiece, and mentally calculated how long it would be. As his head sank down into his pillow, it would be 44 hours before he would see her again. He envisioned the gentle curve of her face, the way her unbound hair fell about her shoulder. He could see the pale skin above her breasts peaking through the lace of her bodice. He groaned and turned over, mashing his face into his pillow. He was obsessed. This would not do. He couldn't sleep with these thoughts racing through his mind; he had to distract himself somehow.

He got back up and sat down at the small table he used for a desk in the dingy one room apartment he leased above the campus cafeteria. He turned on the only electric lamp in the place and opened a few books. He was studying anatomy, but he couldn't even look at those pages. The thoughts of her anatomy were all he saw. He slammed the book closed.

There was a box of metal parts sitting on a shelf by the door. He'd promised Boris that he would look at it; they were parts from an old BMW motorcycle Boris had salvaged and had hoped to get running again. Werner had tinkered with motor parts since he was a boy, and had found he had a talent for it. His father had been the mechanic everyone in the tribe went to when things broke down, and his father had been a genius when it came to cobbling together something out of practically nothing. They could never afford a car of their own, but if any of the odd collection of trucks and vans and carts that made up the rag tag of vehicles the tribe owned or traded broke down, the elder Von Doom was the man to fix them. As a boy Werner had watched in wonder and awe, keeping track of the bright pack of tools his father laid out neatly and learning what each one was and what it could do. Werner wasn't nearly as talented, he thought, but he understood the principles of engines and sprockets and fuel and air mixtures. And it was good to do work with his hands instead of his head every once in awhile. He picked up the box of parts and set it down under the lamp, pulling out the cylinder heads and carburetors to take them apart piece by piece as the quiet night droned on and a cricket in the corner mournfully chirped.

By the time the morning came he'd cleaned and reassembled an entire cylinder, both carburetors, and even repaired and straightened a tangled mass of a wiring harness. He'd only slept a few hours, and that was when exhaustion finally caught up to him and he'd dozed off at the table. He didn't even think about the school and whether or not he would be forcibly removed if Franz made good on his threat from the night before. He cleaned himself up and then attended an anatomy class in a large lecture hall at the center of the University, where he could lose himself in the back of the class and follow along without being noticed. Only there were fewer than the usual number of students in class that morning, and the professor seemed unusually distracted. The daze that Werner was in, he could barely pay attention to the lecture, and when the class had ended Werner gathered up his notes and found he'd written nothing more than her name, and a fair likeness of her face was drawn in the corner of his book. He slammed the book closed, and marched out of the hall angry at himself for wasting the opportunity to learn on some … beautiful, but completely unproductive daydreaming!

Thirty two hours to go. He worked a few hours in the cafeteria. There was an insistent buzz going around the student body. Everybody was talking about the Soviets, the student resistance, the flag being desecrated, the Warsaw Pact, Kruschev and Budapest, Austria neutrality, and a sovereign Hungarian state. Someone even asked him, as he was serving meat pie on the serving line, if he was going to go to the barricades. He didn't remember any of it. Love may be bliss, but it is also agony. He remembered everything they had said to each other that night, and he groaned at how coarse and shallow he must have sounded to her. Maybe she wanted him gone for two days so she could pack up her things and flee before having to see him again. There was only … 30 hours to go. He crawled back to his apartment after the midday meal and collapsed on the bed, exhausted.

He wanted to run out to the campsite, maybe he could see Boris again. He could deliver the parts of the motorcycle; he'd be pleased that he'd finished it so quickly. No, she'd surely see him if he was there and then chastise him for crowding her. But he so wanted to see her again, it was eating him alive, he thought he would die. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't study. She was his Cosette to his Marius, and he contemplated writing poetry in honor of theirs, and his, agonizing courtship. He was an abysmal poet, and he ended up throwing everything he'd written into the trash. He was better at art, but even his best likeness came nowhere near capturing her radiance. He slept for a few hours, but when he awoke the first thing he did was look at his watch. Twenty-six hours to go. What was he to do?

Werner gathered up a notepad and went to an early evening class on biochemistry. The lecture was dry and technical, and he had to concentrate a bit more, so he managed to get through it without it being a total loss. Afterward as he was crossing the campus, there was a bit more yelling and activity and folks running back and forth than he was used to seeing at this time of night, during the middle of the week. Werner was well aware that there was a bit of a revolution going on in his latest adopted country, and it had been something brewing since the spring. As fate would have it, Werner was often someplace where there was a bit of a row going on around him. He hadn't planned it that way, but Eastern Europe had been nothing if not unsettled since the end of the Great War. Werner hadn't really thought much about it, he didn't care for politics and he didn't feel the need to make his voice be heard. He had a knack for disappearing on the fringes and not getting involved. His lifestyle demanded that much. There were very few ruling regimes that would think twice about throwing a gypsy rebel rouser into some deep dark dungeon for the rest of his living days. It didn't matter which side he would choose, he would always end up the loser. Civil rights and equality were concepts to be battled in a different generation. So he didn't choose one side over the other. His participation in the school, and his association with these students, albeit not quite legitimately, had forced him closer to the center than he'd ever been before. This bit, this little event, whatever it was or would eventually be, was getting a little too close for comfort, and he wondered if it would be safe for him here very much longer. There was no telling though, it could all blow over in a fortnight. Off in the distance, someone with a bullhorn was giving a speech in an open quad area, and students were running toward it to hear. Farther off in the distance there was the sound of gunfire. Werner shrank further into the shadows of an arched hallway. His first thought, were of the gypsies at the camp, and he hoped that they were safe. Then he wondered forlornly if they would ever be safe again.

By the next afternoon Werner had finally made it back to the gypsy campground. It was quieter than it had been at his last visit, but other than that nothing had changed, the people were going about their business as usual. Whatever was going on in the city hadn't touched them in the woods, as far as he could tell. Werner had hitched a ride with a farmer's truck for part of the way out there, and walked the rest of the way in on foot. He carried Boris' box of parts, his satchel with his examination instruments, and a clutch of fresh picked flowers he'd found along the way. Boris met him on the road, and walked with him toward the center of camp. The older man was practically beaming, Werner assumed that it was over the parts he'd fixed, but there seemed to be an undercurrent of scheming going on behind that bushy beard. Werner couldn't place it, so he didn't ask. Besides, his eyes were all on a bouncing female who raced down the road to meet him, barefoot and lusciously radiant in the warm afternoon sunlight.

If she had thought about him as much as he'd thought about her, he couldn't tell. Her youthful smile was brilliant, though, and it was all he could do to not take her in his arms and kiss her right then and there. But there were elders about them now, and restraint was called for him, but he longed to hold her, to know that she might feel something warm for him as well.

"Are these for me?" she asked impetuously after polite 'hellos' were exchanged. She reached for the flowers.

"No," Werner responded, "these are for your aunt."

"Oh!" She pouted a little, but wasn't really disappointed. The flowers were pretty pathetic, Werner realized. "Well, she's waiting for you at home, come on then!" And she turned and raced away, knowing that he would follow.

And Werner's heart sank a little.

He plodded up the hill after leaving Boris with his prized motorcycle to put it all together. He presently found the bright little caravan on its place on the hill, and was unexpectedly met by a trio of elder women with stern faces and dowdy widow's frocks. Cynthia stood in the open doorway at the top of the steps, chewing on the end of her hair and looking down upon the little group as Werner was stopped by the welcoming committee.

"We cannot allow you to examine this woman alone," the oldest looking of the widows announced officiously. "It is forbidden."

"It's quite all right," Werner said, putting on his best professional attitude. "I'm the doctor."

"Harrumph," the woman answered stubbornly.

"Well, look, there's no way we're all going to fit in there at the same time," he said. "If one of you would like to assist then please do. Otherwise, step aside and let me help this poor child."

The three widows conversed among themselves, then finally stepped aside to let him pass. The youngest looking of the three followed him up into the caravan, while the other two huddled at the bottom of the stairs and cast harmless spells of cleansing upon the walls of the caravan. Werner thought he saw the sign of the evil eye, but he pointedly ignored it and walked bravely up into the dark interior of the caravan.

Cynthia's aunt Rebecca was a tiny, simple creature. She was beautiful in a plain, common manner, with her reddish hair cut short and tucked into a modest white linen cap. She sat upon her bed, her bed clothes clutched around her. She was reassured by her niece, and she smiled sweetly when Werner presented her with the bouquet of wild flowers. She was not old, Werner was surprised that she was actually only a handful of years older than he. He approached her with a wisdom and gentleness that belied his young years, and he asked her questions using simple terms and colloquial language of the earth people that she would be sure to understand. The old woman behind him closed the door to the caravan, and Cynthia brought out an oil lamp, bathing the interior of their tiny home in a warm glow.

An hour later, Werner and the old woman exited the caravan. Werner went straight away to a clean water basin to wash his hands, casting a stern look upon the three old women, united again and cackling excitedly among themselves. They wouldn't thank him, or apologize, or even apologize to the young woman they had cast out and labeled as unclean, for that would undermine their authority and power. But he hoped, at least, that they would learn something from this experience, and not be so harsh or quick to judge. He had, he thought, taken the first step toward bringing modern sensibilities to a culture far too entrenched in aged traditions.

Cynthia came bursting out of the caravan like a whirlwind a few minutes later, and ran straight past the old women without a glance. She wrapped her arms around Werner's broad chest and pressed in close. "Thankyou thankyou thankyou!" she cried breathlessly. She pulled away and looked at his startled expression, then hugged him again. "Thank you!" she repeated, squeezing tightly.

Flabbergasted, but pleased and delighted and barely able to contain himself as well, he hugged her back, gently, restrained, and said quietly, "Your welcome. It was the least I could do." He could smell the lavender in her hair.

"I know, but it was wonderful," Cynthia pulled away, and admired him as if seeing him for the first time. "I really didn't think you would, I mean … who would have thought? I mean, after my aunt was married, and she'd lain with Gunther all that time, and then to find out …"

"Well, just because a man and a woman lay together, it doesn't mean that they … I mean," Werner was surprised to find that he was embarrassed, talking with her, about this, now, out in the open, in broad daylight, in front of ... everyone. For it seemed that the old gypsy women had been joined by a crowd of their tribe mates, and everyone was coming to hear the news. "I mean … ahem … well, they were both very young, at the time, and they didn't know how, I mean, she didn't actually know what … And Gunther may not have been equipped to … uh, actually, do the … well, and that of course explains why she didn't ever become … with child."

"I know!" Cynthia replied enthusiastically. She took his arm and wrapped herself in close, explaining thoughtfully as she guided him gently from the crowd that had formed around the caravan, "that probably explains why Gunther lies with men now."

Werner blushed, and gulped, and croaked, "He does?"

"Oh yes, ever since they were divorced by the elders," Cynthia replied knowingly. "It's quite the scandal, but everyone blamed Becca for that. Thank God he lives with another tribe now, wouldn't that be just awful?"

"Yes, yes, it would."

"And now, now I have to find her a husband! Oh, how wonderful that will be for her," Cynthia mused thoughtfully. "I think I know just the man too!"

"Oh?" Werner gulped, and hoped that he hadn't misunderstood her intentions, or the next moments would be very, very uncomfortable. "Who would that be?"

Cynthia laughed, and for a moment she could have crushed his dreams, but she wouldn't be so cruel. "No one you know, but a man, the drover, we met him on the road some time back. I think he fancied 'Becca. They would be a good match."

"Ah," Werner replied, visibly relieved.

"Ah indeed," Cynthia was still laughing. But she took on a serious note, as she had guided him to a shady spot under a wide oak tree on the edge of the meadow. The warm tawny grass of the field undulated before them like an ocean, and she tucked her skirt under her to sit on the exposed root that made a cozy little bench at the base of the great old tree. "So why did you not bring me a gift, young Doctor Von Doom?" she asked petulantly.

"Ah, but I did," He said, still standing. "But you should not call me 'doctor', because presently I am not."

"Oh, but you told those old crones that you were."

"Well technically I am only a student, and a healer in the gypsy fashion," he admitted. "But a doctor, well, that is something that is bestowed upon a student after many years of study, and I'm afraid I will never be that."

"Why not? Surely you are as intelligent as any of those students that were here before. And you know things that only a doctor would know."

"Even so, the school lets me study without paying, but they will confer no degrees upon me for having done so, no matter how hard I try or how long I study."

"What matters degrees? A piece of paper! That is like the passports that Zoltan forges. We will have Zoltan make a paper that proves you a doctor, and who is to say you are not with the magic that you did today!"

"If only it was that simple," Werner sighed.

"Ah, you are so serious," Cynthia pouted a little. "Enough of that, I want to see my gift! What is it? Show me!"

Werner knelt in front of her, and reached into his satchel for the small package he had hidden there. He pulled out a package wrapped in plain brown paper with a red string around it, and handed it to her.

She practically squirmed on the bench as she gleefully untied the package. But when she uncovered the contents, she stopped and gasped a little.

"Shoes?" she tried to hide her disappointment. "You bought me shoes …" her voice faded away. Then she looked at them closer, and had to pause in wonder. They were very fine, leather throughout and hand stitched along the soles. A modest, delicate wooden heel was glued to the leather soles. They had a bright buckle across the arch, and just enough material to cover the toes. They were elegant and modern, without being too flashy. And even more amazing, they looked to be the perfect size.

Werner had known that it was a gift that she might scoff at, but he had wanted to give her something he knew she wouldn't get for herself, or from anyone else. He had called in a favor with the cobbler, whose arthritis he'd been treating regularly, and it was the best he could do in such a short time frame. He had memorized the shape of her foot, and the cobbler had performed a small miracle in realizing that shape in leather. He reached for her bare foot, and wiped it clean of dirt and bits of grass that had clung to her slender ankles with his handkerchief. He then gently slipped her foot into the little pocket of leather. "I had to guess on the size," he said, then smiled as it fit like a dream, and he fastened the little gold buckle smartly into place.

Cynthia admired the shoe, and then admired the man, again, to her surprise. "They are beautiful," she said aloud, a bit dreamily. "And perfect. Really, just, perfect." She quickly removed the shoe and wrapped it up in the paper with the other, almost embarrassed at how easily he had disarmed her.

"If you don't like them I could change them for another …" Werner started, uncertain what this reaction meant.

"No, they're very nice, I love them, really," Cynthia said sincerely. "They're far too fine to be wearing about this place, you shall have to take me someplace special so that I can show them off!"

"Oh! That I will be happy to do! I'm glad you like them!"

"But don't think Mister … Doctor Von Doom, that just because you can shower me with gifts, or cure my aunt …"

"I didn't actually cure her …"

"… or fight another man in defense of my honor and reputation …"  
>"Oh! Did you hear about that too?"<p>

"I saw that, mind you, and it wasn't the first time foolish men have battled for my affections!"

Werner interrupted, "I don't doubt that it was," he said, "but I was hardly fighting for …"

"Just don't think that you can sweep me off my feet!" Cynthia stood and swirled her dress about her dramatically. She posed like a dancer, proud and aloofly, her head aloft and her nose in the air. Her dark curly hair swirled about her defiantly.

"Oh? Like this?" Werner stepped forward and in one swift motion he swept her off her feet and into his strong arms. He spun her around playfully, and she laughed and he shared in her laugh. They laughed like children, gleeful and free. Then his head dropped naturally down close to hers and his gray green eyes locked onto her dark, brown eyes in a moment of breathless excitement. The whole world fell away, and the sun parted two distant white clouds above their heads, filtering through a break in the branches above and bathing the two lovers in that sacred light. He gently let her down, but even as her feet reached the ground, her lips reached up to his, and they kissed, gently, quietly, passionately.


	5. Chapter 5 The Five of Cups

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT**

**Chapter Five: The Five of Cups**

**Hungary, 1956**

Cynthia settled into her little corner of the caravan and quietly prepared her bed for the evening. She'd snuck in late, but her Aunt Rebecca was sound asleep in the upper berth at the back, shrouded by a thin cloth that hung around her bed. Cynthia was still all aglow from the evening she'd spent with Werner. She couldn't help but smile just thinking about it. They had talked, and kissed, and talked some more (and kissed some more). He'd stayed for supper around the big fire with the rest of the tribe, and she had been only slightly annoyed when everyone wanted to talk to Werner about some ailment or worry that they had. He'd become a very important person in their tribe, and Cynthia pouted just a little when his attention was taken away, but then felt a little proud too. Even curmudgeonly old Boris seemed to give Werner a fair amount of respect, and Werner accepted their respect humbly and graciously. He was generous with his time and knowledge, and infinitely patient, even with the old women who had hexed him earlier that day. But when Cynthia danced that evening all eyes were again on her, and she made sure that Werner knew it too. She didn't dance for long, and waited patiently until she and Werner could sneak away from the others to their private spot under the tree. Once there, with the stars circling overhead, they continued in their quest to get to know one another, the way that lovers do.

But Cynthia knew enough to leave him wanting more, so as much as it pained her to do so, she chastely sent him on his way before the evening got too late, or their passion too hot, and she retired to her caravan alone. She lovingly placed her new shoes in a safe spot, in a covered box beside her bed.

As she settled down on her low bed, she pulled her box of treasures out from the corner of the room, and opened the hinged lid. She lit a small lantern and set it upon a hook on the wall, looking over to see that her aunt's bed was still in the dark behind the curtain. She quietly began rummaging around in the things she stored there. This one chest was the sum total of all that she owned and valued in the world. There were a few books in there, some candles and incense, a scrying globe, a metal basin, some stones, strings of beads and amulets, her tarot cards (carefully wrapped in a silk cloth), and her diary. She held the crystal globe briefly, looking into it, then set it back down. She grabbed a handful of beads and cast a quick spell, more of a prayer really, to protect Werner from harm. She made it a simple spell because the consequences of random spell casting were well known to her. The gods upon which she asked favors were jealous and cruel, and often only granted such protections by taking them away from someone else. But surely such a simple spell would not attract much attention, and Cynthia did worry about her new beau and the long trek he would make that night back from their forest home into the lights of the city. She finished the spell casting and took out a fine ivory brush, and set about smoothing the curls of her thick black hair for the evening. When she was done with her evening ritual and had slipped into her bed dress, she grabbed her diary and a worn nub of a pencil, and sitting on her bed with her back to the wall of the wooden caravan, she began to write.

"Today, I am sure of it. Werner Von Doom is to be your father."

Cynthia had always been a precocious child. She had been born to gypsy parents in Romania, and like most gypsies her parents were functionally illiterate. But her grandmother had been a maid to the Romanian queen, and so had learned to read because the Queen thought it was important for her servants to be literate. And the Queen had taken a fancy to her grandmother and often had her read to her as she lounged in the glow of bored opulence. Long after she had left the service of the Queen, her grandmother continued to read and would often bring out some of those books she'd saved to practice with her young granddaughter. In this way Cynthia had learned to read, listening to her grandmother and following along when she was still very young. It wasn't very long before Cynthia's reading had surpassed her grandmother's ability, and she read all the books her grandmother had saved from the Romanian Queen. So she begged and borrowed and stole from anywhere she could find, until she had newer books. And she read those, cover to cover, many times over till she knew each one by memory. She had started reading in the Romanian language, but she often found books or magazines that were written in French, Hungarian, and German. She learned to read in those languages too. And she started to learn to write as well. That's when she started her diary. Initially, they were just pages where she practiced making the letters and copying down words. Later, she would start to keep a history of her life.

She was a puzzle to her parents, but being a girl they mostly left her alone. Her three older brothers had disappeared during the Great War, probably taken by the Nazis, and following the war many gypsy families were left broken and bereft, struggling with a terrible loss. Cynthia's parents were no exception; her mother and father were emotionally shattered. Her poor mother spent her days asking every stranger she met if she'd seen her sons on the road to their camp. Her father was often drunk, passed out in some open field somewhere. Only her grandmother seemed untouched enough by the tragedy to pay a scattering of attention to the bright eyed little girl, making sure she was fed and had clean clothes and a dry place to sleep. Cynthia had been too young during the war to grasp what had happened to her family, and she coped best by escaping into books. By the time her womanhood had arrived, she had already started to learn the ways of magic – not the insipid, ineffectual earth magic of her people, but real magic. She had obtained a forbidden book of spells and had slowly been deciphering the ancient language. And in learning magic, she began to understand the need and the allure of power.

She continued to write. "I am so excited I cannot sleep, we spent nearly the whole day together. He is so smart, not at all like the other dull boys who have courted me. He is perfect in every way, tall and strong, and a natural leader. His eyes are gray, his beard is dark but a little thin yet, it is scratchy when we kiss. Perhaps I will ask him to shave, perhaps for our wedding night, at least. He is also a skilled healer, he is a natural at the art. He has been all around the world, he went traveling as a young man, and he is a little bit older than me, but that is no matter. He knows the way of the west, and that will be important for you to learn from him. He knows our ways too, he knows the herbs and the best time to pick them, and he knows the differences between the roots and flowers that heal or poison. He knows them nearly as well as I do. He can read, and he is going to the western medical school, so perhaps he will be a doctor. I will have to make a reading for him, to find out for certain, but I have to be careful also. He is _Rom_, but he is not so open to the ways of magic, perhaps he has spent too much time among the gadje. He is still a gypsy, with bonds deep in the blood of the family. He is gentle, kind, and thoughtful. He is not rich, but rich in knowledge, so he is humble and his humility is real and sincere. I think I can trust him, in my heart I feel safe with him and trust that he is a man of his word, a man of great honor. Most important, he will be a leader of the gypsy, I see that in him even now. They follow his words with natural awe." She paused and set down her pencil for a moment, stopping to think about what they'd talked about that evening, and what she wanted to remember for her diary.

She wrote, "I must teach him that the ways of magic and science are not so different. I hope he will understand. I think he must, if we are to survive."

Cynthia thought back to the first time she had used magic. When she was twelve years old, she had stumbled upon an old hermit's home in the forest. It was a crude shelter of vines and scavenged boards, hidden within a dry thicket of thorns that was nearly impenetrable. Not so impenetrable to a young gypsy girl, bravely chasing a rabbit she'd hoped to catch for her supper. She had followed it on hands and knees through a tunnel in the bramble, and when the tunnel had opened up she had emerged into a large room with a dirt floor and a bed in the corner. Then she had heard a sickening "ker-ackk!" and turned to see a dirty little man had caught her rabbit, and broken its neck.

"Hey," she cried out bravely, "that was my rabbit."

"Mine now, mine now," the little man said. "Trespassing, you are, trespasser! Get out! Get out!"

"I've been chasing that rabbit since down by the river," she protested bravely. "Look, that is my dart in its leg! Give it back!"

The old man ruminated as he saw the blue flag dart in the dead rabbit's hindquarters. "Not a good shot," he grumbled. "You missed the muscle, let him get away." He pulled out the dart, and tossed it to the dirt. "You can have your dart, now go 'way! Rabbit stew, rabbit stew, not had rabbit stew in many moon." He smacked the gums of his nearly toothless mouth and drooled a little involuntarily.

"Not fair!" Cynthia picked up her dart. She briefly thought of re-arming her cross bow and shooting the crazy old man. She looked around at his shabby little abode, her eyes adjusting now to the windowless gloom. He had a table and a bed, and there were strange things scattered all about the room. Skeletons of odd creatures, feathers, bowls and tiny clay figures, candles and dried cloves of garlic hanging from the ceiling, a real glass mirror in a gold filigree frame. It was the kind of odd collection of things one might find washed up along the banks of a river after a flood, but there was also a kind of order to the menagerie. There were rough hewn boards that formed the walls and ceiling, and on every board there were symbols scrawled in charcoal, symbols from ancient Cyrillic script, symbols that she had seen before but didn't understand. And there were pages of some kind of manuscript on the table, and three bound books gathering dust in the corner.

"Go 'way," the old man repeated, he set the rabbit down on his table and started making strange gestures with his hands. "Do not shoot Radescu, do not … eep!"

Cynthia raised her tiny crossbow and aimed it at him threateningly. She was tall for twelve, as tall as the old man, and he could see that she wasn't afraid. "Give me my rabbit, or trade for it."

"Ach, nothing to trade, nothing of value," Radescu pleaded with his hands raised defensively.

Cynthia looked around the room, but she already knew what she wanted. "Give me one of those books."

"No, no … books not for girls. Not for _gypsy_ girls! Dangerous that, very dangerous." Radescu muttered something else, unintelligible.

"I can read," Cynthia told him defiantly, still aiming her crossbow at him. The tiny dart probably wouldn't kill him, but it would hurt, she knew. She didn't know if she could actually make good on her threat. But she knew she wouldn't leave this place empty handed. "The rabbit or the book," she demanded.

Radescu wrung his hands nervously, looking from the rabbit to the crossbow to the pile of books on his dirty floor.

"I could always tell the men of the village where your little rabbit hole is," Cynthia added, on the hunch that whatever Radescu was, he was a man who wanted to remain hidden from the world. "How would you like that, huh?"

"No no no no …!" Radescu looked up at her in fear, "Hard bargain, gypsy girl, dangerous, gyspy dangerous." He grabbed the small book from the top of the pile, and threw it at her feet. "Take it then, promise not to tell, keep Radescu hidden."

Cynthia didn't lower her bow as she looked down at the small book. As she knelt to pick it up, she kept her eyes on the crazy old man careful that he might try to trick her.

"Keep Radescu hidden, keep safe from men." He pleaded as she picked it up, looking it over front and back.

"Very well," she answered. "It's a deal."

"You read that?"

Cynthia lowered her bow, not sure if that was a statement or a question, he had a strange way of speaking. She looked at the title again, and flipped some of the pages. It was in Latin, but yes, she could read it. "Yeah, I think so."

Radescu nodded then turned back to his rabbit. She started to back out the way she had come in, but before she'd left he said, "You read that. Come back, tell Radescu what it says."

Cynthia smiled. "All right," she answered. The book was titled, "Cantus Carminibusque", Latin for "Spells and Incantations".

It was three months before she returned to the hermit's little hideaway in the forest. She almost didn't find it, because the spring time had changed the dry, bare vegetation into a lush growth of leaves and flowers and fresh vines sprouting fruit. When she crawled through that tunnel opening, she was surprised to see Radescu standing there, as if he was waiting for her. He seemed a little different too, as if the reviving forest had awakened something in him as well. Or perhaps his earlier delirium was a direct result of having been on the verge of starvation. Either way, his color was better, his face was washed and his scraggily white hair combed back, and the leaves and twigs had been cleaned from his white beard. He still wore a dirty canvas shirt and a thin woolen coat over a shabby pair of pants with a simple rope for a belt. There was something different about his eyes, as well. Cynthia gasped a bit, to see the change in him. He was more of a man now, less of an animal. She hadn't expected that.

"Gypsy girl," Radescu said clearly, "you read the book."

"Yes," she replied, "I did. Most of it, that is. You look much better."

Radescu ignored the compliment. "Show me what you learned."

"Oh." Cynthia hadn't really tried, but now was certainly as good a time as any. The first spell was a simple fire casting spell. She stepped to the middle of the room, and as best as she could tell faced toward the east. She held her hands aloft, two fingers and a thumb on each hand extended. "Ignis splendens, igne lux, ignis magus," she chanted three times. Nothing happened.

She tried again. Still nothing.

Radescu watched her critically but said nothing.

She tried a third time, finishing strongly with a final, "Igne Lux!" And she leaped backward in surprise as a trickle of fire came flying down through the space between her hands, and ignited into a brilliant orange and yellow blaze at her feet.

Radescu's eyes were nearly as wide as hers, as the fire grew into a respectable conflagration that seemed to feed on the earth itself.

Cynthia's breath was taken away, as she watched that fire in amazement. It had heat and light and smoke, like every earthly fire she'd ever known, but she had called it forth from a dimension not of this earth. She was thrilled, and a little frightened. It was her first taste of real power, it was a baby step, but she understood that it was what she was meant to do, not just for herself but for her family as well. She knew enough about forbidden magic to know that most people were superstitious about these sorts of things, and that was why the hermit Radescu had to hide out in the forest. But she would be smarter than that; she knew that she would not make those same mistakes. The blaze slowly died until there was nothing but a black spot upon the earth.

Radescu picked up another book from the pile, and handed it to her. "Very well, gypsy girl," he said. "I will teach you. Read this, come back, tell me what you learned."

So it went, all through that spring and the summer and on into the fall and through the following year. For nearly two years Radescu was her mentor, and she was his secret apprentice. She didn't tell anyone. She would have told her grandmother, if she'd still been alive, but she had died that winter. Her only friend left was her Aunt Rebecca, and she was an outcast now for having failed to produce a child with Gunther. And being simple, Rebecca didn't care to see what Cynthia read so intently. Cynthia would read, and when she returned to the forest Radescu would supplement her reading with magic that was not in the books. If Radescu had actually, or could even, read the books he had hoarded she was never able to tell. But she would bring him food, and fresh clothes sewn by her aunt, so she tried to repay his kindness when she could. She was a quick student, able and ready. Radescu seemed to accept that it was his destiny to teach her. He kept his part of the bargain and he was a skilled wizard, if just a little touched. Some days, rarely, he was less than lucid and seemed to regress into that animal-like madness that had held him that first day they'd met. She learned to accommodate his moods, and on those days she would practice on her own in the quiet of the woods. His experience brought a new dimension to her learning that she could never have achieved from reading alone. The only thing he never let her read, were the pages of the manuscript she'd seen that first day she'd stumbled upon his abode. Those he kept hidden, and she never saw them again.

Then one day, when she was nearly fifteen, she went to the forest the same as she always did, and crawled through the tunnel into the lonely little abode, but Radescu was not there. She waited for him, on into the night, but he did not return. She came back two days later, and still he was not there. She gathered up his books, she'd read them all by then, and took them back to her caravan. She had a strange premonition, not a vision but a hunch, really. She thought that she'd keep the books safe for him, just in case. She came back to the forest only one more time a short while after that, but this time the shack had been destroyed. By man or animal, she could not tell, but the depth of the destruction seemed to be something that man would do. Man, or _demon_. She found a few of the magical totems and talisman items that hadn't been crushed and broken, and kept them for herself. She never went back again, she never saw Radescu again, but she believed that she now knew the skills that she had needed. She had a power all her own now. Now, she only needed to know how to use it.

Power was something that Cynthia craved, because women had no power. Not in her world. Their power was tied only to the men who might marry them, and even then they were disposable. Her poor aunt had showed her that much. And gypsies, men or women, had even less power. Not long after Radescu had disappeared, everyone in the gypsy camp she'd known as home most her life had been forced to flee. The communists had finally caught up to them, and conscripted every able man and woman into forced labor camps. Her mother and father, estranged though they were to her by that time, had been caught, and when they tried to flee they'd both been murdered. The gypsies that remained scattered to the winds, seeking shelter wherever they could. The secret police hunted them down whenever they stopped to settle, so they kept moving. Cynthia and her aunt spent a year on the run with her own kind, living a hard scrabble life. But she would not live like that for the rest of her life, and so she took charge of her own destiny. They would seek safe haven, perhaps in Latveria or maybe Hungary. The homeland of her birth no longer welcomed her and her kind.

Necessity demanded that Cynthia continue to learn, but not just about magic. As her body changed and matured, she began to learn a little of the power that women do have, that all women have, and that was the power over men by virtue of her sex alone. Cynthia began to learn how to use that, to survive. She learned the dance, and the dance that she could sell was a magic in and of itself. But her magic was also tied to her body, and to give it to just any man would be to lose some small portion of her potency. So she remained steadfastly chaste and untouched, giving just enough to make the men groan with lust, while they showered her with gifts of money and goods, hoping to win her favor. Then she would slip away into the night, disappearing before their lust betrayed their good behavior and tempted them to take more than she was offering. All the while her true magic stayed hidden, and she practiced only in secret.

But there was one secret that had begun to haunt her. A casual prophecy, a fortune telling she was not meant to see. It was a fortune she had read for herself, not meaning to, but having been careless with the scrying globe one evening, she had seen something of her future. Every fortune teller knows it is a fool's folly to read one's own fate. But once she had seen the vision, she couldn't look away. It continued to haunt her. She had finally learned to accept it, and so she began writing to her son, writing letters to a boy she had not yet met or even knew his name. A boy she knew that, if the fates would have their way, she would never know in this life as anything more than a small child.

"One day," Cynthia wrote in her diary, "I will be able to practice magic out in the open, without fear of retribution or shame. One day I will be able to use my magic to help our people, all of our people, to protect them from the tyranny that forces us to forever run. One day, my son, when you are king, your magic will be stronger than all the other magic in the world, and the men who once terrorized our people will be afraid. Then the gypsies will be free to live as we were meant to live."


	6. Chapter 6 The Seven of Wands

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT **

**Chapter Six: The Seven of Wands**

Cynthia would have never left her beloved aunt alone in the world. The two women had been friends since she was a child and they were the only family they had left. More than ten years had passed since Rebecca had been ostracized from their little band of gypsies on account of her failure to conceive a child after laying with her impotent husband Gunther. Of course no one blamed Gunther, in their world it was always the woman's fault when there were no babies born. Gunther had demanded a divorce after less than five months marriage, and the elders had granted him one. As long as Cynthia's parents were alive, Rebecca was sheltered from being cast out by the tribe completely. But following the death of Cynthia's mother and father in the Soviet labor camp, there was no longer a place for the two unmarried women. Barely 15 years old, Cynthia had packed what little the two women owned into a gaily painted caravan that had belonged to her parents, and for a year they had been on the run, quietly evading the Romanian police. They made their way south, away from the established towns, and lived by their wits. They briefly joined with other small bands of gypsies who were also forced to stay on the run or leave Romania completely under the new Soviet regime. The other wanderers they met often told them that there was safe haven for gypsies in other, distant lands. By that fall they had left the fertile valleys of Romania for good, heading for the mountainous country beyond and someplace where they could find shelter and livelihood. They would head west, leaving behind their homeland in hope for a better life. Cynthia had just turned 16.

As Cynthia grew older and more knowledgeable, she had begun to understand that Rebecca, though older by a decade, would know no more than what Cynthia had mastered at age eight. To Cynthia, it was as if the older woman's mind had simply stopped at that tender, innocent age, and would go no further. Neither woman questioned or bemoaned this cruel trick of nature that had robbed Rebecca of the fullness of adult life. Cynthia understood as a child mature beyond her years that she would be the elder sister in many things from that point onward and she accepted this role willingly. If she ever resented having to be the elder, having lost something of the innocence of her childhood, no longer able to play and dream as a child does, or as she got older to take a husband for herself, she didn't let Rebecca see it. Indeed, she even chose not to pursue certain romances that presented to her, for fear that Rebecca would be lost if Cynthia were to join another man's family. Her fierce devotion to her aunt had instilled in Cynthia a sense of responsibility, independence and self reliance, rare in women of her station at the time.

Poor Rebecca quietly accepted her lot in life. Labeled "unclean", she would not be accepted into the social circles of gypsy life until she was chosen to be a wife again, and no man would chose her if they thought she was barren. The fact too, that she was "touched" also left many a man reluctant to consider taking her hand in marriage. This was cruel, it may seem, but the practice had its basis in both ancient tradition and pragmatic practicality. Women contributed to the tribe's existence by raising children. Despite all the cards stacked against her, Rebecca had a developed a skill as a seamstress and in old times that would have been enough to enable her to contribute to the tribe by selling skirts and shirts in the little villages that they passed through. That was until the Soviets and their communist regime began steadily tearing down the gypsy way of life.

They often heard the phrase, "_From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs_." The gypsies historically lived under a similar social system, but they would contribute to their tribe for the good of the tribe, for their extended family, not for the whole of the country. Their brand of socialism was tied to the notion of family, and they had no value for the concepts of "nation" or "government". Wherever they lived they did not identify themselves as "Romanian" or "Hungarian", they were "Roma", they were gypsies. They had never owned land or property, they were stewards of the land, not lords of it. What they needed they worked for, invented, created, or did without. They knew nothing of taxes, or bread lines, or labor camps. The bartering of goods, selling of services to make a little profit for the hard times, dancing for a few coins, anything that didn't contribute to the national collective, these ways were no longer allowed. The once freely wandering tribes were chased, scattered, captured, assimilated, counted, carded and identified with numbers and papers, assigned to permanent settlements, taken out of the sunlight and thrown into the dark antechambers of bureaucracy, forced to comply with rules and barriers and fences, their loss of freedom replaced with stability, their individuality subsumed by normality. There would be no wages for creativity, no leisure for the industrious, and no voices left for singing, only shouting, despair, and misery. Where once they had only the trees lining the meadow for walls, the paths of the springs for roads, and the sky and the mountains for their ceilings, they were being confined for the first time in their lives to grim huts of planks and mud in rows of twenty by four, where filth gathered in the gutters and the air was choked by the smokestacks of industry. Open space was replaced with four walls, a shuttered window, and a slatted door. For many, this was an abomination. For many others, a death sentence.

For awhile, there were those who moved outside of the sphere of the Soviets, small groups that traveled under cover of darkness and kept their distance from the larger settlements. When Cynthia and Rebecca had joined these similarly ragged gypsy troupes they had managed to hold onto their freedom a little longer. In the time of her parents, before the great World Wars, the Roma had traveled the breadth of Eastern Europe and beyond, unhindered and unencumbered by politics or passports, from the shores of the Black Sea to the Spanish coast. They often stopped and stayed in campsites near settlements that needed labor for construction or harvest times, but they still lived by their ability to chase fortune wherever it would lead, selling their wares and their skills where they were most needed, offering entertainment and amusements, and living off of the land as they traveled, taking what nature would give them. Then the second great World War had decimated many a gypsy tribe when the Nazi's began gathering them up. They were labeled as undesirable, an inferior race, and the Nazi's imprisoned them in concentration and extermination camps. Cynthia's three older brothers had probably perished in such camps. After the war, though many tribes had returned to familiar lands, they found the 20th century was less and less accepting of such an open disregard for so-called civilized living.

Then the Soviets began their relentless campaign for control of the Balkans. The gypsies were chased off of lands now called "private", hemmed in by walls and borders, imprisoned for poaching, and shut out of jobs that required men to have papers, credentials, licenses and bank accounts. If they were often shunned and chastised for being thieves and charlatans, it was because that was sometimes all that was left for them to make a living. Their elders often talked openly among themselves about the changes they were facing, and in hushed whispers around the evening fire the men would speak of rumored pockets of resistance throughout Eastern Europe, places like Greece and Albania and Hungary, the rebellious Serbs of Yugoslavia, and the smaller, distant mountain countries of Latveria, Symkaria, and Transia where gypsies were still believed to live free lives. But the walls were closing in, and the borders were growing ever more fenced, walled, and closed by that sharpened demon of progress, barbed wire, and soldiers with guns and dogs.

If the life of a gypsy was hard for the men, it was worse for the women. Particularly for the women who did not have husbands to protect them. These women to whom bad fortune or bad genes had left unmarried, who were widowed young, abandoned, brutalized by cruel husbands, disfigured by accidents, or cast out for being witches, they were either labeled as whores if not forced by poverty and starvation to labor as one. And in some communities a woman could be stoned to death simply for being accused of adultery. Cynthia knew this and hated that she had to be extra careful around strange towns, so when she was traveling she often dressed like a man in a hat and heavy coat. But to make money she had to dance. She knew that when she danced, the men of the villages would be thrilled and the fever of lust would often take them. It was a fine line she walked, profiting off of that lust but never succumbing to it. They needed the money, and the money she made from her dance would feed them when no one else would.

One night, not far from the western border, Cynthia made an almost fatal mistake when a patrol of six Soviet soldiers had stopped by their camp. Cynthia and her aunt had taken in with two other families headed as they were for safer lands. They normally feared and avoided all soldiers, but this patrol arrived quietly on foot, and requested only food and rest for the night. These men were different from the lazy Romanian soldiers with whom she was more familiar, their faces were cruel and stern, they were arrogant, more cynical, hardened by years of conflict and disdainful of the foreign lands that had kept them so long from their Russian homes, and they were mean, fearless, and hungry. Whatever duty had brought them this far into the country it wasn't the business of rounding up gypsies, so they were hesitantly welcomed into the nomads' camp. But that hesitancy soon turned to cheer, as the soldiers also carried leather bags of gold coins with them, and were willingly spreading it around the gypsy camp, drinking their fine wine, gobbling up bread and game, and lasciviously grabbing with greasy paws at the single women that passed too close to their table. Quickly the camp took on the trappings of a carnival, with every clan catering to these rich men. Cynthia wanted some of that gold too, for they were soon to be crossing into unknown lands where her earnings would have to sustain the two women over the winter. So she danced for the soldiers, and they eagerly gathered around the fire as her skirts whirled and soared in time with a gypsy drum and guitar.

Her dance was beautiful and sensual, designed to stir the soul and quicken the heart. She teased, smiling seductively at them and used her colorful scarves, heavy with her perfume to wrap around their bare heads, but she kept tantalizingly out of reach. Their gold coins dropped in her basket, but their arms always closed on nothing but the air where she had been. Her long black hair twirled in the night around her, catching light like the star filled sky. She flirted, laughed, leapt and withdrew, drawing them in hypnotically. The gold coins bounced joyously in her basket. But it wasn't enough for the Soviet captain, he wanted more. Then a misstep, a bit of straw tripped her up, and a stagger step brought her too close to the leering captain. He encircled her narrow waist with a soldier's strong arms, and pulled her into his lap. With a fiery defiance she struck at the captain, pushing his hands away and slapping him hard across the face. That first blow had been rewarded with raucous laughter from his drunken companions, but the Captain did not let go.

"Come now, feisty one," he growled, his breath sickeningly heavy with wine, "better place for your hand is here." He pulled her hand down into his pants where his passion was growing. His men continued to laugh and shamelessly encouraged more from their captain.

"Let me go!" she demanded. She was strong but she was only 16, and no match for a grown man's might. The music was suddenly silenced, and when he wouldn't let her go she raked her sharp nails across his face.

Where the first blow had brought mirth, the second had released blood, and with it the Captain's righteous anger. He leapt to his feet and howled like a wounded bear. His squad joined him instinctively, moving like a single unit. They turned upon the gypsies like a pack of wolves. The soldiers suddenly brandished weapons and shouted insults, they hurled ethnic slurs in their rage, and snarled threats that their bullets would soon follow. Cynthia and Rebecca were the strangers here, none of the gypsy men would come to their aid, and most had disappeared into the darkness beyond the firelight at the first sign of outrage from their Soviet masters. She had freed herself from the Captain's grasp, but now she faced their guns. She had escaped the groping hands that sought to ravish her, but to escape this onslaught of misogynist loathing would require more power than simply scratching nails. Still, she faced their anger with a fury all her own.

She stood her ground. She had a power, and she was not afraid to use it. "Leave here now," she growled back at them. "I will not warn you again!" Rebecca alone was left in the circle, clutching her guitar before her like a shield. She had no idea what her dear niece was going to do next, and neither did the men.

"You'll learn your place, girl," the Captain bellowed like a bull. He strode forward to grab her again, confident that the men with guns behind him were all the force he needed to get his way.

He was wrong. Cynthia raised her hands, and a simple binding spell was all she needed to stop him and the other men in their tracks. But the spell would not last for long.

"Hurry Becca, we have to go now!" Cynthia told her aunt.

"But, they'll follow us," Rebecca answered with simple fearful clarity.

Indeed, they probably would. Cynthia mused for a moment. She had Rebecca help her remove their guns, a simple enough thing to do while the men were frozen and unable to resist them. The guns ended up in the nearby creek. She then had Rebecca go and harness the horses to the caravan. They would be forced to leave the small group they were traveling with that very night, and to flee hastily, before the squad of soldiers was able to summon reinforcements to come after them in force. Before she left Cynthia cast another simple spell as insurance to buy them more time. Once the binding spell released them the soldiers would probably lose a good deal of time searching for their boots and pants, now caught on branches in the trees high above them, dangling just out of reach. Unfortunately, due to their rapid departure, Cynthia and Rebecca would have to travel without their guide, and Cynthia had only the vaguest idea of where they were headed.

Cynthia drove their poor horses hard through the dark across the high road toward the mountains separating Romania from Transylvania and Yugoslavia. They had traveled all night, half the night without even a lantern to guide them. But the dirt road they followed was wide and straight, lined by farms on either side, and the full moon had lighted her way. So Cynthia fearlessly plunged ahead through the darkness. They had climbed well into the foothills before she dared to stop. At dawn she let the horses rest in a clearing by a cool mountain stream, shaded by trees and just off the road. There was a low hill topped by a tall rock from which she could scan the road far behind them all the way down through the hazy misty morning light into the valley below, to see if they were being followed. When she was satisfied that they were safe for awhile, she could finally eat a little, quickly bathe and change into her traveling clothes. She had kept watch to the rear all night, but she was fairly certain the Soviets hadn't followed them. She quietly hoped that the others in the clans they were with had escaped as well, though none had dared to ride with her once she had revealed that she was a witch. She didn't know these roads at all, but she had talked with one of the drovers the night before. If they kept to the low road they would soon cross into Yugoslavia. Then they would head north and follow the river into Hungary.

When she hitched the two horses again, she handed the reins to Rebecca.

"Stay on the road," she instructed her aunt. Rebecca was a capable driver, she was small but very strong for her size. "I need to rest," she added. Rebecca had slept most of the night while they'd traveled, and Cynthia was truly exhausted by then. "Wake me before nightfall, or if there's trouble ahead. We'll see if we can find a small village to rest the night."

The borders in those years were poorly marked on all but the main roads. As far as Cynthia knew, they could have already crossed out of Romania, but there was no telling for sure until they found a settlement. These small country lanes, barely passable by horse and buggy and avoided by all in the winter, were used only by the local farmers and mountain folk. They hadn't seen another person since leaving the gypsy camp, but that isolation was preferable to the busier routes where they were more likely to encounter soldiers who would demand papers or turn them back. Rebecca clucked the horses forward, their pace more reasonable now, and Cynthia climbed into the back of the caravan, wasting no time before falling asleep to the gentle swaying and bumping of her familiar home.

It was early afternoon by the time the caravan had reached a meandering switchback as the road lead them lazily up into the dry rocky foothills. The autumn sky was gray and overcast, but there was no rain in the air. Great dark purple mountains far in the distance towered over them, darkening the sky to the north. The wide dirt road passed through desolate forests of oak and beech trees that rustled their leaves in the dry wind. The two horses plodded on, needing little urging from their pilot. As they traveled higher, they began to encounter tall spruce and black pine trees. Rebecca whiled away the hours whistling little songs and listening for the birds to answer. But the birds had left these mountains for the winter was coming, and the forest was strange and quiet. She drove their caravan out into a clearing, and was startled to see that the road ahead, where before there was only one, now there were two.

Rebecca reined the team to a halt at the crossroads, puzzled now by two choices ahead of her. She understood the instruction, "_Stay on the road_." But which road? The horses took her momentary indecision as freedom to lower their heads and pull at some dry grasses at the side of the road. It was then that Rebecca saw that there was an old woman sitting on a large boulder directly in front of her. Rebecca was troubled and anxious by this apparition, as she hadn't seen anything there when they had first approached the fork in the road. It was as if both the woman and the stone had materialized out of the mist. But Rebecca knew that she was often distracted, so she calmed herself by thinking that maybe she just hadn't noticed them before.

The old crone was ancient, with a face wrinkled and tan, a toothless mouth and only one eye left. She wore a burgundy scarf wrapped about her head and pure white hair poked out from underneath it in fits and starts. Her skirt was black, as were her boots under a thick layer of dirt and mud that was caked on them. She wore a white apron with a little lace border and over that a heavy wool sweater with bits of red embroidery. Her clawed hands were bare, the bony fingers busily plucking at the strings of a small cloth bag of cut tobacco. She had a long pipe in her lap, with a corn cob bowl at the end. She had a gold earring and a tiny, almost invisible tattoo on her left cheek, a little cross, as black and dark as her skin and almost hidden within the crow's feet of wrinkles spreading out like a river delta from the corner of her eye. She rested on a large gray boulder along the side of the road, only a few feet away from where the road split into two. The old woman looked up just as the horses had lowered their heads to munch on the dry grass, and she raised a crooked hand to wave at Rebecca in greeting. With all her wrinkles it was impossible to tell whether the woman was smiling or frowning. The old crone carefully examined the caravan and the young woman driving it with her one good eye, an eye so brilliantly blue it was like looking into the clearest sky. That brilliant orb was both beautiful, and haunting. It was no wonder she only had one left, for certainly she could have sold the other as a jewel for a rich man's treasure. Rebecca timidly waved back in greeting. The woman went back to packing her pipe with the cut leaf tobacco, and waited for the question she knew would soon come.

Rebecca considered again the choices before her. To the left, the road seemed to head directly for those dark mountains. There was something foreboding about those distant peaks. Even the lowering sun didn't seem to touch their rocky crags with its rays. A miasma of clouds swirled about their lofty peaks. To the right, the path was level and smooth before it dipped and disappeared again into another dark forest. But to the left, the road was clearly visible as it climbed through the grassy foothills, before disappearing over a distant rise. Both roads were wide and well traveled. Rebecca didn't like the forests with the dark and the quiet. She looked briefly back through a little window into the caravan, but Cynthia was still sleeping soundly on her bed.

"If you go that way, it is two days before you come to any water for the horses," the old woman finally spoke, tired of waiting for the stranger to ask. She pointed the end of her pipe down the road that led through the forest. She adjusted herself on the stone and squinted up at Rebecca to be sure that she was heard. She snorted and farted the way that old folks do without apology or embarrassment, smacking her flabby gums and grunting with satisfactory impunity. She lit the pipe patiently before she looked up again at the driver of the caravan. She puffed on the pipe once or twice and then pointed up the road toward the mountains. Her face was lost in a lingering blue cloud of smoke as she spoke loudly and clearly. "There's a well not more than a few miles up this road, and a pass through the mountain further on. You'll find a village there too."

Rebecca looked up the mountain road, standing up on the buckboard to see if she could see any farther up the road than she had initially assessed. She didn't prefer one road over the other, she could see that either one had its perils. She just didn't like making a decision all on her own. She was afraid that no matter which one she chose, it would be the wrong one.

"You should go that way," said the old lady, again pointing up the road toward the mountain.

The woman seemed to have read Rebecca's mind, and made the decision for her. Rebecca knew not to trust strangers, but the old crone reminded her of so many of the gypsy elders she had known. That was good enough, and Rebecca slapped the reins against the back of the horses, and turned their heads toward the uphill road. "Thank you, ma'am," she said as she passed the old woman, still sitting on the rock. The old woman waved and puffed again on her pipe as the caravan rocked and jolted a bit making the turn, and then creaked and groaned as the good horses pulled steadily up the gentle slope.

The old woman sat stock still for many moments, listening to the wheels disappearing in the distance and steadily puffing on her corn cob pipe. Then satisfied that the vehicle was well on its way, she slid down from the big rock, brushing her skirts and straightening her sweater. She stepped away from the rock upon which she had been sitting, not bothering to read the crudely painted letters there. Her skirts had obscured those letters to the departed caravan, now clearly revealed as she moved away. There was a white arrow on the rock, pointing down the road to the left that went through the forest. The letters spelled out the name of the village, Tamur, and a distance, 2 m. The arrow pointing to the right was blood red in color, and labeled with a skull and crossbones; a dire warning. The old woman gathered her small bag and headed toward the village. She was neither gypsy nor friend to the caravan that had just passed. She was, in plain fact, a familiar. And she would be handsomely rewarded for the prey she had just sent up the hill toward her masters.

It was some time later that the normal smooth rolling of the caravan had been replaced by a rocky bumping back and forth with the occasional unsettling jolt. This unnatural movement is what awakened Cynthia from her slumber. She used the little window behind the seat to climb out of the living part of the caravan and onto the driving seat next to Rebecca. As she did, she could see the reason for the rocking. The wide dirt road had disappeared, and they were now rolling on a narrow, rocky path cut into a cliff with a treacherous drop on one side of the road into a deep, dark and dangerous valley. They had somehow traveled into the mountains, and wherever they were, it sure wasn't Romania any longer.

"What the …?" Cynthia didn't finish, but asked "Rebecca where are we? Did you turn off the main road?"

Rebecca of course didn't know, but stated anxiously, "I followed the road like you asked. The gypsy said to go this way, she said there was a well and a village but it's awfully far." Rebecca didn't understand the difference between a few miles and fifteen, if she had she might have turned back long before they got this far.

Of course Rebecca wouldn't know where they were or even where they were headed and it wasn't her fault. Cynthia knew that this wasn't the road the gypsy driver had described to her the night before, and it had turned more to the north from the westward track they had started out on that day. Unfortunately the road was now too narrow to turn back, and Cynthia wasn't sure if it would be safe to go back. Plus, she had no idea how long they had been going the wrong way. The horses were laboring on this rocky escarpment, and the sun was nearing the horizon. The looks of those mountains was ominous, it would be colder here than the night before, and they would need to find someplace soon where they could rest.

Cynthia scanned their surroundings and tried to think about where they could be. Gypsies didn't often carry maps, but they carried an oral tradition that described the countryside that they traveled through, and Cynthia had listened to these tales all her life. By the looks of the mountains she guessed that they were probably in Transia or maybe the southern edge of Transylvania. They were above the tree line, but looking up the road ahead she could see that it crested a peak and it would soon start down again toward the valley. There was nothing but dark trees and rock in that deep valley to her right, but on the cliff on the opposite side of the valley far ahead and almost at the same height as the road they were on now, there was some kind of castle or fortress carved into the mountainside, peaking through the forest of pines that blanketed the steep sides of the valley wall. That meant that there was probably a village somewhere nearby, and food and water. They could see nothing else but trees in the valley so far, but it seemed that fate had decreed that this was the way they should go. As long as they were safe from those soldiers, Cynthia assumed that it was no worse for them ahead than it had been behind. She couldn't have been more wrong.

It wasn't long before they found a place that looked to be a settlement of sorts. The road had finally led them down a steep, winding path into the valley below. As they reached a flat place in the pines just below the summit the road had widened and a clearing showed a little cluster of buildings on either side of the road. Ahead and past the village the road split again, one road heading north and up again toward that fortress Cynthia had seen, and the other following the valley downward to the west. West toward Yugoslavia, she hoped. But for now they would have to stay the night here.

The village was deserted. There were a dozen buildings in all, mostly low huts of broken timbers, wood beams and shake roofs. One larger building of stone looked to be either a rooming house or meeting hall. There was a rough shed with piles of unused lumber and large cut logs under cover. It looked to be a wood cutter's camp, and the workers had probably left for the season. Cynthia called out at the dark little houses but there was nobody there. Every building had a stout wooden door with a thick lock and boarded up windows. It was a grim utilitarian place, as still and quiet as a tomb. But there was plenty of cut wood for a fire, and shelter under the shed should they need it. There was no water nearby, but what looked to be an old well sat near the center of the village on a low hill next to the stone building. Even the well was boarded up. Cynthia stopped the caravan next to the large building near the well. They would make camp there for the night. There was a trough and a hitching post for their team, water in the well, and shelter enough by the side of the tall stone building. By the time they had unhitched the team of horses, the sun was touching the distant horizon to the west. Night would come early to this valley.

Cynthia still had on her traveling clothes, men's trousers tucked into tall leather boots, and a heavy shirt. Her long hair was braided and hidden under a wide brimmed hat. She wore leather gloves to hide her fine hands. From a distance, she looked all of a slight young man with a narrow waist. She found a pry bar next to the mill, and went over to the boarded up well. The well was on a low rise in a large cleared area. Beyond the well was a tall dark wall of pine trees, illuminated by the last rays of the sun. The last bits of sunlight were creeping up that hill as the sun slowly sank below the mountains to the west.

The well was constructed of a low round stone wall, just below knee height and no more than four feet in diameter. It didn't have a pump, and for some unknown reason the top of the well had been completely covered by wooden boards nailed into the stone casement. Four sturdy wooden posts sunk into the earth around the perimeter of the well were capped by a peaked roof, and under the roof was suspended a large steel wheel. A length of rope wound through the wheel and was tied to the metal handle of a large wooden bucket, stored on a nail inside the well house. The excess rope was neatly wound up and tucked into a shelf under the peaked roof.

"Why's it boarded up?" Rebecca asked as she came over to help.

"Not sure," Cynthia answered. "Maybe the water's bad. Maybe they don't want anyone to fall in. Here, help me get these boards off." Cynthia used the pry bar and they quickly uncovered enough of the boards to drop the bucket down into the well. One of the boards split as they pried it up, leaving a sharp edge. Cynthia tossed it aside. She looked down into the dark depths but couldn't tell if there was water down there or not. There was a strange smell coming from the well though, something odd that she couldn't describe. She took the bucket and threw it down the well as Rebecca held the other end of the rope. There was a satisfactory splash as the bucket hit water somewhere down in the depths, and the two women hauled it back up using the rope and pulley.

"Wait," Cynthia said, as she poured a little of the water out onto the ground. It was clear and cool. She tasted it. It tasted fine. "Bring over the cistern, we'll fill it up." Rebecca went to get the barrel they stored on the caravan. Cynthia had a drink and dropped the bucket back down into the well. The water was cool, fresh and clean. The cover on the well was a mystery, but she resigned herself to not knowing for now.

Neither of the women saw a furtive shape, a dark shadow, moving across a second floor window of the stone meeting house as they worked. Some unseen hand moved a curtain aside as Rebecca rolled their empty water barrel up to the well, and Cynthia started filling it up with buckets pulled from the well.

She'd only dumped a few buckets into their container when instead of the splash of the bucket hitting the water far below they heard only a faint crunching sound.

"By the gods," Cynthia cursed, "what now?" She pulled on the rope but it was caught on something. She pulled harder. It didn't budge. She had Rebecca help her, they could feel it give a little, but the rope was obviously caught on something. Even with all their weight on it, they couldn't break the rope free. She could hear the bucket banging against the stone sides of the well. Cynthia got a torch from their caravan and shined it down into the darkness. There was a snag, a heavy branch blocking part of the well, and their rope was hopelessly tangled in it. The bucket was swaying in the air below the snag. They didn't yet have enough water for even the horses. She could hear the bucket knocking against the sides of the well far below. Cynthia inspected the rest of the rope, it appeared to be sound, and if she could free the snag they would be back in business. She looked down again. It wasn't that far to the where the snag was. She unwound the excess length of the rope and looped it once around the beam that the pulley was on, and then tied a couple of knots for hand holds in the end. The rest of it she tied securely around her waist. Rather than wasting time looking for another bucket, she would just go down into the well and free the obstruction. She had Rebecca hold the other end of the rope, and she climbed into the well between the broken boards. It wouldn't be the first time she'd climbed someplace she wasn't supposed to be.

"Careful!" Rebecca warned nervously.

"Just hold on," Cynthia instructed fearlessly.

It wasn't that difficult to climb down, the casement was lined with large stones that provided narrow holds for her hands and feet, and the walls of the well were close enough that she could brace herself between them. With Rebecca providing the tension from above, she quickly descended into the depths, her eyes adjusting to the dark as she went. She soon could see the snag of wood clearly. Some kind of branch had gotten in the well. It was wedged against the sides of the well, jammed between the stones. The rope to the bucket had wrapped around a thick portion of the snag. She lowered herself another few feet. If she'd been facing the opposite direction, she would have seen where a large hole had been clawed into the side of the well, a horizontal shaft that formed a deep cave of indeterminable length a few feet above the high water line. If she had been paying closer attention, she would have felt the whisper breath of cold death emanating from that black hole. That sepulcher breath of wind caused the hairs on the back of her neck to stand on end. But she was concentrating on the climb just then. Closer to the snag, the stones were slippery with wet moss and slime, and Cynthia had to be more careful or she would end up in the water. Finally reaching a point where she could reach the snagged rope, she braced against the side of the wall, leaning on her back. When she was certain she could maintain the position she yelled up to Rebecca to give her some slack, and she untied the rope from the snag. The bucket at last fell free.

"Pull me up a little," she called up to Rebecca. She went up a few more steps. "Ok, stop! Hold it there." She tested her foot hold and let go of the rope, trying to lever the snagged wood out of the rock with both hands. It didn't want to budge. She used her foot to break one end of the snag. It took several blows of her boot to finally crack the smaller end of the stick. Finally it came away. She caught it in her hand.

She looked back up into the circle of light far above. "Okay, Rebecca, pull me up!"

The rope tightened and Cynthia was thankful for the leather gloves, as she held onto one of the big knots in the rope with one hand, while her other hand held the bramble of branches. She used her feet on the slippery stones to climb back out. She still didn't see the hole in the side of the casement wall as she passed it again, going up this time. A moment after she had climbed past that foul cave, a clawed hand shot out of the darkness toward the gypsy girl.

She smelled it an instant before she saw it, and she only barely saw it. It was preceded by the stench of putrid flesh. The next moment it had grabbed her foot. She screamed, but despite her fear she didn't let go of the rope. Her heart was racing like a wildfire, and as the creature pulled and clawed at her foot she instinctively stepped away from the wall with her other foot and kicked at it. But all of her weight was now on the rope, and Rebecca hadn't been prepared for that, so the rope slipped a little. Suddenly she was even closer to the creature in the dark. A hairless arm with pale skin and nails like claws grasped her by the ankle. It pulled her down even further. The rope painfully cut into her waist and she let go of the snag of branches to grab the rope with both hands. The clawed hand on her leg was like a vise, crushing her leg to the bone.

"Pull me up! Pull me up!" She screamed up at Rebecca, as the creature tried to pull her down even more. She braced her foot against the side of the well and pushed up with all her might, trying to free herself from the monster's grasp. Her arms were burning with the strain of holding onto the rope. As she looked down into the darkness she began to make out an almost human shape below her. Wild bloodshot eyes looked up at her, and fetid breath hissed from a wide mouth with terrible sharpened teeth like an animal. Its skin was the gray of death, and it had hideous rags covering most of its body. It made unnatural sounds, not quite words, growling and garbled. The pale limbs were gaunt and bony, but it had a tremendous strength that belied its small size. It was half inside its hole, and half reaching up into the well after the gypsy girl. Its free hand was grasping to try to grab her wildly kicking foot. For a moment Cynthia thought it was going to pull her apart.

Then when the moment of panic had passed, and she was able to think clearly, she cast a desperate spell upon the creature. The first thing that came to her mind was the binding spell, the same one she'd used on the soldiers. It was a quick incantation that she didn't need more than one of her hands free to complete. There was an almost imperceptible flash of blue light that surrounded the creature in the dark below her. She could feel the tension immediately loosening from her arms. It worked, but the foul creature still had a hand clasped around her ankle. She kicked but couldn't dislodge it, and surprisingly enough although the creature had stopped pulling her down, it was still fighting the magic spell that was supposed to hold it motionless. It was not a creature of this earth.

With her one foot free she found a foothold on the walls of the well again, and desperately yelled up at her aunt. "Pull, Rebecca, you've got to pull me up!" Amazingly, the small woman on the other end of the rope hadn't given up, and was slowly and steadily pulling Cynthia up with the monster still attached to her leg.

As they reached the top of the well, Cynthia began to better see just what type of monster it was. She shuddered, and didn't dare look back, she concentrated only on reaching the top. As soon as she pulled herself into the light, the monster began to scream and writhe in agony. Cynthia pulled herself up onto the wall of the well, and then fell backward into the dirt, the rope still tied around her waist. The monster fell out of the well with her, and in the fading sunlight that touched the hillside with shades of pink and purple, it began to burn.

"Get it off! Get it off!" Cynthia screamed, kicking at it in the dirt as it writhed and smoked and the pale skin began to char in an unseen flame. The binding spell around it formed a field of blue haze that struggled to contain the unholy creature. Rebecca banged the head of the thing with one of the loosened boards, blindly battering it but careful not to hit her niece. Cynthia was finally able to free her leg, and she scrambled away from the hideous creature. It was still rolling in the dirt and screaming a horrid, deafening screech of death.

Cynthia caught her breath, fascinated and horrified all at the same time, and untied herself from the rope. She couldn't look away. Her heart was beating like a freight train, and her arms felt like limp noodles. But she quickly recovered her head if not her composure entirely. She pulled off a narrow, sharpened bit of the broken board beside the well and attacked the creature with a relentless, untamed fury. She plunged the sharp stick into the body of the beast, over and over again, blood streaming out and flying through the air, until it finally stopped screaming. But she didn't stop, she struck it again, and again, finally plunging the wood deep into the heart of the beast. The monster was dead, and the binding spell slowly faded away. Cynthia left the wood shard in its heart, the monstrous face contorted in a demonic grimace, the pale gray hands clawing at the air, frozen in a moment of torment, and the blackened skin still smoking. She backed away from it, still in shock, kneeling in the dirt, spattered by its blood.

A tall man came running up to the well. He held a rifle in his hands, and as he approached the two women he pointed the rifle at them both. He was yelling at them.

"Are you bit? Did it bite you?" he yelled at them.

Rebecca raised her arms in the air and started to cry a little. It was too much for her. She dropped to her knees, hands still in the air and shook her head "no" silently.

The tall man stepped closer to Cynthia. She was a terrible sight, covered in blood and dirt, the hat she wore had come off in the dirt and her braids fell down to her shoulders. He was surprised to see that this too was just a girl. "Are you bit? Answer me, did the creature bite you?"

Cynthia didn't know. She stood up, shaking now as the rage that had driven her subsided. The man put down his rifle and used the bucket to grab some water from the barrel. Cynthia stood stock still, in shock as he used the water to wash the exposed parts of her face clean of the splattered blood, and paying particular attention to her neck. He examined her hands and arms. She passively let him. She looked down at her boots. Where the creature had grabbed her leg it had left scratches in the leather, and her ankle was sore, but it had not punctured her skin. She was unharmed.

"Well, that was really something," the strange man said.

Cynthia was still shaking. "Vampire," she said hollowly, her voice dry and quiet.

"Yes, and there's more where that one came from," the man answered. He looked down the well. Using the butt end of his rifle he pounded the old boards back in place over the top of the well. There was still a bit of a hole from where the boards had broken, but that would have to do for now. "Look, it'll be dark soon, and we have to get inside. Can you walk?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Cynthia replied weakly, still staring at the strange, smoking corpse. "I'm fine."

"The horses!" Rebecca cried.

"Your horses will be fine," the man said, "the vampires aren't interested in them. Look, there's enough water here for the night, I'll help you with this but then we have to get inside." The man grabbed the cistern and started rolling it on the edge back down toward the building where they'd unhitched the team.

Rebecca looked at Cynthia as she stood up, and asked weakly, "Cyn? Are you ok?"

"Yes," Cynthia finally looked away from the monster's corpse. "Do as he says, Rebecca, it will be all right. Take care of the horses, I'll meet you inside."

Rebecca slowly turned away and followed the strange man down the hill to the horses.

Cynthia stood looking down at the blackened corpse. When Rebecca had gone she crouched beside it furtively. She had seen something earlier, something amazing, and she didn't want Rebecca to see it. She knelt beside the corpse, still frightened by it, and still deeply horrified by what she'd done. It wasn't enough to call it an undead thing, a monster, a vampire. It had once been a man, maybe just a boy her age, by the looks of it. She'd killed it, and her hands were shaking from the ferocity of her attack. How had she lost control so quickly and thoroughly? But she had to put that thought aside. She had had no other choice. She reached in to gingerly pull at the filthy rags that covered the creature's body. There was a thin gold colored chain around its neck, and as she pulled the chain free from the shirt, a bright blue ball fell clear of the rags and rolled into the dirt beside the corpse.

It was an amulet of some kind, fastened into a pendant by a bit of gold glued to the top with a loop for the chain. The amulet was in the shape of a blue ball, or some a kind of marble, but larger than a marble, like the size of a small lime. It glowed with a bright blue light, as if from inside the stone. She picked it up. It was hard, like glass, but warm. She pulled at the chain and it broke, the amulet coming away in her hand. As the amulet fell away from the corpse of the vampire, the dead body suddenly turned to ash, disappearing into the dirt with barely a trace. The chain fell away and landed in the dust at her feet. She didn't care. She was still in shock a little, still shaking. But as she was standing there in the fading light of the day, looking at the bauble she held, she sensed, no, she knew, that there was a power in that bright blue ball, something magical and amazing. She stared into its blue depths, searching, hypnotized. A breath of wind on her neck broke her reverie. She stuffed the bauble into one of her pockets and ran down to join her aunt and the strange man.

She would write in her journal of that day only of the vampire at the well, and the man who had helped them. His name was Ernst Sablinova, and he was from the country of Symkaria, just to the west of there. He turned out to be some kind of famous mercenary Nazi hunter. He'd come to that small Transylvania village searching for Nazi war criminals, but found instead a clutch of vampires. His horse had run off, and he'd taken refuge in these abandoned buildings awaiting rescue. When he saw the two gypsies he'd been afraid that they were familiars of the vampires, which is why he didn't show himself until after they'd killed the one at the well. Lucky for them, otherwise they might have been out in the open and vulnerable all that night. Cynthia praised him in her diary; he'd certainly saved their lives that day when he'd let them shelter with him in the big stone building. As it was, they'd heard the vampires swarming the village all night, but they'd been safe in the strong boarded up house with Monsieur Sablinova. And the next morning the Nazi hunter rode along with them in their caravan, safely guiding them out of the mountains down into the lowlands. They would soon be on to Hungary, where chance would find them meeting and joining the group of gypsies headed by Boris of the clan Zefiro.

Cynthia never showed Monsieur Sablinova or her Aunt Rebecca the amulet she'd taken off of the dead vampire at the well. When they were finally on their way down the mountain, and she could hear Ernst regaling Rebecca with some tall tale of his adventures hunting war criminals, Cynthia had climbed quietly into the back of the caravan and looking back to be sure she wasn't seen, she'd opened her chest of belongings. There at the bottom, under piles of clothes and old books, was one of the three original books she'd taken from the hermit in the forest, old Radescu, when she was but a child. The thickest of the three books was the most ancient, but it wasn't just the book she was interested in. She untied the wide black ribbon that kept the binding closed, and opened it. At the back of the book was a hollowed out section, a secret compartment. Again, she looked back to see that Rebecca and Ernst were still chatting. She opened the secret compartment. Inside that hollow space in the pages was a small blue ball, a lime sized circular rock that glowed from within as if from some interior energy source. She reached into her pocket, pulling out the amulet she'd removed from the vampire. Except for the bit of gold welded onto the one she'd just taken, the two blue rocks were virtually identical. As she brought them closer together, a spark of energy seemed to pass between them, and they glowed even brighter, and lit up the dark interior of the caravan with their spectral glow. She could feel the amulet in her hand pulling toward the one in the book, as if it wanted to be together with its mate. She was fascinated, awed, and thoroughly perplexed. It was surely magic, but a magic she'd never before encountered. She dropped the new amulet into the secret compartment with the old one. The two stones crackled and flashed together for a bit, as if the two baubles were exchanging information, and then they were both quiet, the bluish glow slowly dissipating around them until it was just a faint luminescence. Puzzled, but certain that there was something of magical significance here she touched them gently with her hand. They were still warm, but the buzzing energy within the amulets had quieted. She closed the book and tied it shut again, shoving it back into its hiding place at the bottom of her chest. Before she closed the chest, she pulled out another small book, and then pushed the chest back into the corner. The mystery of the blue amulets would have to wait, for now, she had more pressing concerns. She opened the book. The book was titled, "Das Jagen und Töten von Vampiren", by Dr. Abraham van Helsing.


	7. Chapter 7 The Fool

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT **

_Chapter Seven: The Fool_

**Hungary, 1956**

Werner Von Doom was dizzy with delight as he made the long walk from the gypsy camp back to his apartment in town. The whole evening had been spent sitting beside Cynthia at the gypsy camp. When he hadn't been watching her dance, he'd been patiently caring for the never ending aches and pains of the tribe's elderly and infirm, all the while longing to find his place by her side once again. They'd finally snuck away to a quiet place under the big tree at the edge of the meadow. He'd spent long hours of complete and total bliss talking and embracing and staring passionately into her dark brown eyes, her long lashes fluttering demurely against her cheeks as they spoke of their lives and their hopes. So much of what she had said was as if he had spoken it from his own heart, they were like one mind on so many things important to him. She constantly surprised him with her wit and insight, yet she still was so innocent and untouched by the weary dreariness of the world. Even her own troubles, her tragic past, seemed to have done nothing to darken her bright spirit or her strong will to persevere. His heart quickened as he remembered her pressing up close against his body, and he wrapped his coat around her against the cool night air. He sighed as he instantly recalled the smell of her hair, lavender and honeysuckle and just a hint of musky wood smoke. They gazed up into the sky and identified stars and planets and constellations circling overhead in the inky darkness. He thrilled at the touch of her hand on his cheek, and the gentle tremor of their lips touching underneath the shadow of the big oak tree. He positively floated on the memory, so lost in his thoughts that he forgot his weariness and the cold of the night. He marched a mile or more onward that way, his feet barely touching the ground, a grin on his face and sporadic outbursts of spontaneous laughter that he couldn't have held back if he tried. Such was the lightness of his being at the moment, buoyed by this new sensation and thoughts of love and a new life together, that he could think of nothing other than the ecstasy of being in her presence forever.

Then as soon as he'd been so elated with thoughts of love that he came to the conclusion that his life was complete, that he could die right now and never fear the sword or the judgment, he came crashing down to earth with a frightful and staggering crush of self-doubt. His feet suddenly felt like they were shod in lead weights.

"Shoes … I gave her shoes!" he moaned aloud. "She must think me such a dolt! What an idiot I am! How could I be so stupid? A woman like that should be adorned with jewels, showered with gifts of perfume and diamonds and gold. Surely her other suitors have been richer men than I. A woman like that, she is so fine and beautiful. What must she think of me, in my poor suit so worn at the elbows, and barely two coins to rub together in my pocket?" He stopped in the middle of the road and threaded his coarse fingers through his dew-moistened hair, and then looked around the darkened road as if he was suddenly lost. There was nobody there, not a soul in sight over the misty wet roadway. It was near midnight, and the lights of the city were barely visible through the trees and down the hill in the distance. There was a kind of eerie luminescence emanating from the scattered streetlights that illuminated the cold gray fog settling over the valley, and the inky darkness pressed down from above him like a heavy blanket. A hushed quiet had settled over the forest road, pierced only by faint drops of dew that fell from the trees onto the leafy ground. Werner's moment of self-doubt weighted him down like a stone. Where had this doubt come from? From his own soul. "She deserves better," he finished quietly with a weighty sigh.

He stood like that for a good long while, mournful in his dejection, his heart heavy with despair. He tried to tell himself that surely he had won her love, he had to believe that this wasn't a lie, that what had passed between them was real. Surely he had connected with her in a way that he had not known with any other woman. She had said that she loved him, and he loved her, he knew it. But was that enough? Could he prove himself worthy of that love? Even a gypsy, poor though he may be, had an appreciation for the finer things. Even a gypsy needed food on the table, a warm place to sleep, a thought for the future and the welfare of the next generation. How could he provide her with these things, which he could barely provide for himself? What did he have to offer, but himself? And what could she possibly see in him? He was this pitiful creature, in a worn-out coat too short for his long arms, and shabby pants shiny at the knee, his own shoes polished with coal dust and the seams breaking apart at the edges showing the threadbare gray socks that he wore on days when his black socks were drying on the edge of the sink. And all he had was a job washing dishes and serving slop on the food line at the school cafeteria. He could only offer her his everlasting love, he knew, because every moment that they had spent together his love had grown. He so adored her, he loved the sparkle in her eyes, the graceful bend of her neck, the wild cascade of her hair around her face and shoulders. He loved her sigh and her smile, the arch of her brow and the haughty laughter that proved her wit and the silent fluttering glances that heightened her charm and stole his heart. He would move the earth and the stars so she could have a place to step into heaven, he would slay a king so that she could sit upon the throne, and he would lie, cheat and steal if only to caress her cheek with his kisses before he was hung from the gallows. In his melancholy he was caught up in the passionate excesses of his heartache, but in his rational mind he knew that he had a choice to make about the direction his life was taking. He was at a crossroads, both figuratively and literally.

For nearly eight years Werner had lived his life only for himself. He had moved according to his whims, he had studied what interested him for as long as it held his interest, and then moved on. He kept a job only for the purposes of meeting his basest needs, and cared not at all for neither the prestige of work nor the opportunities presented from it. He had traveled great distances and seen wondrous sites, and daydreamed his youth away while he hadn't a care for what the future might hold. He had directed himself toward medicine as a kind of indulgence, and had mastered it in many forms from the calculations of chemistry to the intricacies of its biology, but he had known all along that it would take a miracle for him to ever be recognized as a doctor in the world outside the gypsies.

He had other skills, he knew. He was a hard worker and he knew enough about the workings of machinery to be a passable mechanic. He could work in a machine shop, running a press or fixing an engine, he had done it enough in the past. But he had squandered those talents as well, using his expertise solely as a distraction without a thought for building a career from it. He had often given those skills away as he pursued his academic dreams, a kind of off-handed gesture at how inconsequential they were to the goals he had set out for himself to achieve in the western schools. Surely he would have to start from the bottom as an apprentice in a machine shop or factory, since he had no proof that he had done as much many times before. He realized with a dejected heart that he had been very selfish and self-centered, his ego buoyed only by the knowledge that he was building his own secret mastery of the academic world. And surely such a tower of achievement was purely and literally academic, for no one had ever acknowledged that mastery for want of a piece of paper proving he'd paid his tuition. Meanwhile his lifetime of practical experience similarly floundered in anonymity. What would he do with all this knowledge he'd gained? What could he do with it, for now and for the future? The thought had strangely never occurred to him before this moment.

Werner stood dejectedly in the street, silently contemplating his feet and his fate. He had told Boris three nights ago that he would not be returning to Latveria this winter with the tribe. He had already decided to stay here, and to finish his studies. But to what end? Could he let Cynthia leave with the tribe, could he stand being separated from her for months or even years? And would she wait for him? Would she wait for him knowing that he would return no better off than when he had left? Now that she knew that her aunt was healthy and could have children of her own, Cynthia would be free to marry. The thought of her marrying another was agonizing to him. But how could he ask her to stay here with him, to live in cruel poverty while he struggled with studies that would grant him no final reward? And how could he leave, with nothing to his name and no way to support them? He had promised his father he would return as a Doctor, but he felt now that he was nothing but a fraud. He could have stood there for hours, lost in this misery of indecision, but he was suddenly cold and tired, the wet of the night was seeping bitterly through his thin clothes. He finally looked up. He had thought to hitch a ride into town, but the hour was late, there had been no cars or buggies on this distant road since he'd started walking. He looked down the hill into town, dreading now the long tramp back to his dreary apartment.

A flutter above his head startled him from his mournful reverie. There was a whoosh and a sudden flap, and a white shadow passed close over his head. He ducked instinctively, his throat clinched with a sudden rush of adrenaline. Then his eyes caught sight of snow white wings passing over the road ahead of him in a slow, pulsating undulation of flight, silent, precise and controlled. It was a great white owl, and his heart calmed as his mind simultaneously thrilled. Those beautiful birds of prey were rarely seen, and the gypsies considered them to be a spirit animal, traveling between the worlds of the living and the dead at will. The bird was floating low over the road as it flew, and then it banked hard left and disappeared into the dark cluster of trees below the road. His self-absorbed trance momentarily broken, Werner followed that specter first with his eyes, and then his feet. He turned off of the road and onto a steep path that headed toward the town, and looked into the wide forest that separated him from his warm bed in that spartan space above the kitchen.

He knew this path, he realized, it was a short cut. He hadn't forgotten it, but he hadn't thought to risk it in the dark. There were bandits that lived in these forests, and other undesirables. It was dangerous in the daytime, but impossible at night. Muddy and foreboding, the path was narrow and unlit by the sparse but friendly street lights that illuminated the paved road. The trees closed around the narrow foot path like talons closing over their prey. The path was barely visible where it formed a steep step off of the pavement. He heard in the distance somewhere up in one of those big trees the solemn hoot of that wise old owl, as if urging him forward. Of course, he didn't believe that the bird was a spirit creature, those were just stories. And the path _would_ save him more than an hour's walking time. A big drop of heavy dew fell onto the top of his head from the wire strung along the road above him, as if to say "hurry up and go already."

Werner stepped off of the road and onto the dark path, slipping a little as the muddy surface gave way. He was no more than a few steps into the forest when he saw the owl again, sitting on a branch overhanging the path directly ahead. It was as white as a ghost, so beautiful and serene, and with the darkness all around it glowed as if illuminated. As he walked toward it he continued to stare at the bird with enraptured amazement. The bird looked at him, those wide yellow eyes curious and unafraid. But as Werner paced closer the bird flew off again, its magnificent wings nearly silent under the dense forest canopy. The sounds of its melancholy cooing seemed to call him forward, and it wasn't long before he was deep into the forest, thinking again of his love for Cynthia and what choices he had to make for their future, and wondering if they even had a future together. He had forgotten the dangers of the path that had frightened him before. It was just a path through the forest, same as any other. He must have become so civilized, living the _gadje_ life in the city, to have ever feared the forest in the night. Such a thing would never trouble a true gypsy. Had he so forgotten his roots?

That was when he heard a new sound, a deep, throbbing rumble from very far away. The distant noise moved through the air like the sound of his own heartbeat pulsing rhythmically in his ears. At first it seemed like a faint whisper, and he thought he might be imagining it. It was so low, a deep bass, that it could have been coming from many miles away. Finally he stopped to listen closely, thinking that it came from someplace behind him, but not really sure. The forest held its collective breath. All of the creatures of the night had gone silent. Even the owl was mute, waiting on this new intruder that dared to disturb the sanctity of the primordial forest. The sound disappeared. Perhaps he had imagined it.

Werner walked on a little further, the path brightened a bit by a break in the trees. With his eyes now having adjusted a bit better to the dark he could actually see the narrow strip of dirt outlined by a parallel line of fine grass that formed the well worn path. This cheered him a bit, and his pace quickened. Then the ominous rumbling sound returned, this time louder. He stopped as if shot. It was definitely mechanical, and it was massive, moving slowly but steadily on the road behind him where he'd just been walking. He listened closer, and now he was sure of it. There were creaks and groans mixed with the rumble, a wet rolling sound, wheels of some sort, and gears and brakes that thrashed and squealed. He quickly turned around. Maybe he could still get a ride into town. Then he saw them, lights filtering through the trees as the deep rumble crunched and ground and echoed with ominous brutality through the forest. It was a frightening, unearthly noise. Werner turned around to try to race back up the hill toward the sound. The slippery ground defied him now in his carelessness, and as he entered the forest from the clearing he lost the path in the dark and crashed into a small copse of trees. He saw the lights pass by far above him, but he couldn't break free from his woody prison. There were several of them, whatever they were, moving steadily down the road toward the city. He was too far away! He'd never make it to the road in time! He could tell by the movement of the lights that they'd already passed the point where he'd stepped off the road. They made a fearful rumble, not like a truck or a lorry or even a freight car. It was more like a train than anything.

Werner finally freed himself from the thicket and stumbled back to the clearing area where he could see the forest trail again. He listened to the sound of the convoy as it faded again into the distance, watching the strange shapes pass by where he could see the high road through the trees. He shrugged to himself, it wasn't as if they would have given him a ride anyway, the way they were moving. They probably would have run him over in the dark. But he was sorry he didn't get the chance to try. The silence returned. Then the owl took to hooting again from some distant perch, and the natural sounds of the night forest, the crickets and frogs and bats, filled the space that the departing of the machines had left in their wake.

"Damn owl," Werner muttered ungratefully, still not willing to concede that he couldn't have hitched a ride, if only he'd waited up on the road.

The owl hooted in response. Then it took to the air again, soaring once more down the path ahead of him, as if beckoning for him to follow. The majestic white wings whooshed and soared through the trees and Werner turned his weary feet down the narrow path once more. The owl kept him company, through that desolate trudge, until the bird disappeared in the fog surrounding the outer buildings of the village and was gone from his company as quickly as it had come. A short time later Werner dragged his tired legs wearily up the steps to his apartment. He collapsed face first on the bed, not even bothering to undress. He slept well past dawn.

The new day had brought with it a bold new determination, and found young Werner Von Doom in the Szent-Gyorgyi Medical Sciences Building on campus. He had put on his best suit and tie, a fine hat he had saved from a wedding, and did his best to disguise his old shoes with his own personal concoction of grease and coal dust. He wetted and combed his long hair, tried to unsuccessfully tame the wavy brown curls that had grown too long since his last haircut, and then finally settled for clamping the hat down over the whole mess. He had with him a small notebook in which he'd frantically written down his plan, and he stuffed it in his satchel and marched purposefully toward the campus. A short time later he found himself sitting on a wood bench in the dark marble hallway outside a long row of faculty offices with a decidedly pained expression on his face. He was waiting outside of the office of the head of the departments of Biology and Internal Medicine. He had decided to skip trying to see the Dean of the school, although that idea had been his first inclination the thought of talking to the Dean completely unnerved him. He chose instead the department head, because he had at least been sitting in on the professor's Biochemistry and Human Physiology courses, and whereas he was a mere speck in the back of a lecture hall of 200 students, he at least felt like he knew the learned professor. It was small comfort.

Earlier that afternoon he had knocked on the door to the professor's office, and an irritated voice beckoned him to "come in!" He carefully opened the door and closed it behind him. He was in the anteroom to the professor's office. He'd never before met with one of his professors, so he wasn't quite sure what to expect. Behind the desk of the male secretary who'd welcomed him in was a door with a glass insert, printed with the name Dr. Andre Messler, School of Medicine, in gold letters on the frosted glass. The door was open just a crack, and there was an indistinct shadow moving behind the glass. Werner happily noted that the Professor was in and by the sound of his voice behind the door, he was having a barely muted argument with someone on the telephone.

"Oh, it's you. What do you want?" The secretary who looked up to greet him was a pale, thin graduate student a year or so older than Werner, and Werner was at first excited to see that it was someone he knew. It was Gert Hauptmann, a fellow student who was also one of Professor Messler's teaching assistants. Gert was often assisting the Professor in the lab where Werner was also studying human anatomy. Hauptmann was obviously helping the professor with his office work as well. Werner also knew Hauptmann because he'd helped him get his car started again one rainy night not so long ago after a late class. That memory thrilled him a little, maybe Hauptmann would return the favor by helping him get in to see the professor.

"Hello, Gert," Werner started personably. But he was stunned by Gert's stoic expression. He cleared his throat and continued. "I've come to speak with Professor Messler, on an urgent matter," Werner said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"Well, no," Werner said, "but it's very important that I speak to the professor right away." The urgency was very real to Werner, although he'd not admit that he'd been waiting for years to do this.

"What is the urgent matter?" Gert responded, trying to sound officious but was personally quite curious. He pushed the round wire-rimmed glasses back up onto the bridge of his long nose and stared up at Werner with a haughty, superior air.

Hauptmann would not yield the door to his bosses' office to just anyone, particularly not to anyone who had the poor form to have neglected to make an appointment. The officious young graduate student had spent most of his life laboring in the shadows of his intellectual superiors. He had gained this minor position as an assistant's assistant as much by perseverance and submissive service than by notoriety or skill, but he wasn't about to let anyone take it away from him. His increase in rank was a lofty achievement that he took very seriously. In his mind every undergraduate wanted his job, that made them a threat to him personally, and a smart undergraduate was to be bullied and harassed, as much as he could get away with, whatever it took to keep Hauptmann in the eyes of the professor and everyone else shut out. Hauptmann had lost his complexion and his sense of humor long ago, and he was slowly also losing his hair. He was at that age where most of his peers had moved on, and he was tired of waiting for his chance. But if licking envelopes and answering phones helped him to advance in the academic hierarchy, than he was not averse to doing it. This upstart Von Doom, who was rumored to be free-loading at the University without paying any tuition, wasn't so much a threat as an annoyance. His assistance that night on the road by his car was quickly forgotten once Hauptmann recognized in Von Doom an easy, almost obscene familiarity with academics. Hauptmann was looking up at the tall gypsy man from where he was seated in a creaky, leather chair, but it was clear that Hauptmann was looking down his long, arched nose at the other man. His small eyes narrowed suspiciously. From the papers that Hauptmann had seen and graded, he was convinced this poorly dressed young student must have been cheating. His personal belief denied profoundly that any mere gypsy could have come upon this knowledge honestly. That he might have acquired them naturally was a concept so alien to him as to have not even crossed his narrow, bigoted mind.

Werner knew nothing of Hauptmann's anger toward him, he only responded, "It's a personal matter, an urgent, personal matter. Please Gert, won't the Professor spare just a moment of his time? Couldn't you help me in to see him, as a friend?"

Hauptmann softly snorted, unmoved by the other man's emotional plea. "Have a seat. I will relay your message to Herr Professor once he completes his call."

Werner looked around the small entry room but saw no place to sit. There was Hauptmann's desk, a lamp, a few tall filing cabinets, and boxes of books and papers stacked about the floor. He stood there for a moment, his hat in his hand, as Hauptmann continued shuffling the papers on his desk, pointedly ignoring him. Hauptmann kept his head down, and didn't make a move toward the professor's door, which was still slightly ajar. The voices from the room beyond were quiet now. Werner continued to stand silently.

Hauptmann finally looked up, as if surprised to see the man was still there. "Have a seat!" he ordered loudly, gesturing to the door.

Werner quietly turned toward the door to the hallway, then looked back at Hauptmann.

"Yes, outside!" Hauptmann answered, still gesturing to the door. He was enjoying the younger man's discomfort immensely.

Werner looked back at Hauptmann. "You'll give my message to the professor?"

"I said I would," Hauptmann replied coldly. "Wait, and I'll call you in when he's available."

So Werner went back out into the hallway and sat on the hard wood bench, and waited. He waited patiently, for nearly an hour. He almost lost his nerve and left, but finally Hauptmann opened the door. Perhaps he didn't expect to see him still there, but Werner jumped up to his feet anxiously.

Hauptmann looked again at the tall young gypsy. He wanted nothing more than to send this interloper away, but surprisingly enough the professor agreed to see him. "You may come in now," Hauptmann said coldly.

"Thank you, Gert," Werner grinned with relief and patted the other man affectionately on the shoulder as he passed by him into the professor's office. "I won't forget you for this." Hauptmann only snorted quietly and went back to his desk, more annoyed than ever.

Inside the Professor's office, Werner stood quietly at attention as he introduced himself, self-consciously straightening his coat and tie, his hat respectfully in his hand. His carefully groomed curls were now a glorious mess upon his anxious brow.

Professor Messler was standing in front of his desk, leaning nonchalantly against it with one leg crossed in front of the other. He was a middle aged man, of fair complexion with a high forehead and bushy eyebrows. He had a full head of hair, turning silver, neatly trimmed and a full beard of salt and pepper with touches of red. He had a meerschaum pipe in his mouth, but it was not lit. He wore a crisp white shirt and navy blue coat, a dark silk vest underneath with a gold chain for his watch. His tie was black and his felt hat was hung on the coat rack by his desk. His office was three times the size of the small anteroom through which Werner entered. Behind the desk was a full bookcase, and his wide mahogany desk was as clear of loose papers as Hauptmann's had been cluttered, except for one stack of notebooks and papers upon which the professor's right hand was resting. There was an elegant bronze desk lamp and a telephone and a large leather bound journal on the desk, and a small Hungarian flag in a weighted base decorating one corner of the desk. On the wall opposite the door there was a huge picture window, spanning from the floor to the ceiling, which looked out onto the courtyard one level below. The light from the window cast the corners of the room in dark shadow. The professor's desk was positioned at a right angle to that window so that the professor could sit at his chair and gaze out upon that lively view. The window was flanked by red velvet curtains, flung open and tied back with gold colored rope, to better let in the gray afternoon sunlight. The rest of the office was dim; Werner had a recollection of a globe on a stand, more books and filing cabinets, and a pair of heavy, deeply cushioned chairs around a small table with a reading lamp. There was a simple upholstered chair positioned in front of the desk, which Werner stood beside, but did not sit.

"Professor Messler, thank you for seeing me," Werner began immediately upon entering the office. "You don't know me sir, but I've been taking your classes over the last year, my name is Werner Von Doom. And I need your help."

"Oh, I know you, Mister Von Doom," Dr. Messler interrupted. "That is I know of you. You're the young man who's been taking my classes, but hasn't paid a cent in tuition to this fine institution. According to the Dean of Admissions, with whom I was just speaking to over the telephone, you've never even been admitted to this school. There is no record of you at this institution, whatsoever. In fact, if it weren't for the notoriety of your name, and the impression that had made on a number of our faculty, I'd scarce believe you even truly existed up until this moment."

Werner's heart sank. He remembered the threat that Franz had made, after Werner had been forced to fight him at the gypsy camp less than a week ago. "Sir, I can explain."

Professor Messler continued without pause. "This is also, I presume, the same Werner Von Doom who has never picked up a graded test or quiz or even a final exam from any of the five classes of mine that he's taken over the last two years, and I suspect, probably not from any of the classes he's taken. Do you see this pile here?" The learned professor put his hand back on a stack of notebooks and papers six inches thick on the edge of his desk. Professor Messler watched his pupil with studied calm. "Normally, when a student neglects to pick up a graded paper, it's because they've either dropped out, or have so embarrassed themselves with their ignorance of the subject matter that they dare not show their face to the instructor ever again. Normally, I would have thrown them out at the end of the semester. But these, these have caught my eye and I've wanted to meet their author. You have thwarted me every time. Did you know that, Mr. Von Doom?"

"Um, no sir, you see …"

"And did you know that every one of these papers have received an exceptional grade. Several of them, a perfect score. Did you know that as well, Mr. Von Doom?"

"Sir, I suppose that … I don't want to sound arrogant, sir."

"By all means! Surprise me with some arrogance! Your humility has already done you credit. I would have thought you a cheater and a plagiarist if your work hadn't been so original and precise. And then if you'd been cheating you surely would have claimed your grade now, wouldn't you? Why take a course, cheat on a test, and then disappear from the rolls when time comes to file a final grade?"

"I see. You see, sir, I never needed to pick up my test scores, because I knew what my score would be when I finished the exam. When I didn't know the answer to a question, I only knew that there was something I needed to study further." Werner answered as if this was the most natural thing possible.

Dr. Messler leaned back onto the wide mahogany desk in his office and chewed on the end of his well worn pipe. "Do you have any idea how extraordinary that is, young man?"

Werner was silent, he didn't know how to answer that.

The Professor continued. "Even this," he picked up a sheet from the top. "Two weeks ago in the lab we had a surprise quiz, unannounced. Yours was the highest score in the class. You even beat the score posted by old Hauptmann out there," Dr Messler gestured to the door with a sly wink, and added, "The old 'Master Race', you know. Your presence here is probably giving him a case of the hemorrhoids." He picked up the paper, and slapped it with his hand, "You even correctly identified the sigmoid sinuses, a trick question because we hadn't even covered that in class yet." The Professor put the paper down on the stack, and again contemplated this enigma of a student. "So now we meet at last, and you ask me if I can help you. I am dumbstruck, I'm practically speechless. This, from me, is a momentous occasion. Just ask my wife." The Professor chuckled at his little joke.

Werner didn't want to disrespect the professor's spouse by laughing. He wasn't sure what to make of what the Professor had just told him. He had fully expected that there would be some kind of inquisition or discipline for what he had done. He hadn't been prepared for an outpouring of praise. He was surprised that his tests and papers had even garnered this much attention. "Sir, I've come to ask for your help, to become, somehow, a rightful student, so that I may one day become a doctor, if I'm able."

"Ah, well, _now_ you wish to legitimize your intelligence in the halls of academia, after having confounded its staff and evaded recognition all these years," the doctor went back around to the front of his desk and sat down, facing Werner, who was still standing in the center of the room.

"Yes, sir," Werner approached the desk and pulled out his notebook, opening to the page of notes he'd completed that morning. "I've recorded here all the schools that I've attended, and as best as I can recollect the courses I've attended at each one. You can see I've followed a logical course of study in the sciences, with math, history, philosophy, and language studies as well. I think I've completed what could be a core curriculum, equivalent to a bachelor's degree, and I'd like to continue my studies at the graduate level here." Werner paused as the Professor looked over his hastily prepared documentation. "But there are no actual records, at any of those schools. No grades to show that I've passed, no certificate of graduation."

"No transcripts? None at all? Even at the secondary school?"

"Yes sir, that's correct."

"How did you manage that, all these places?"

"Well, at first it was easy, I simply said that the records were lost in the war. Sometimes I … well, I had friends who would forge certain passports. I learned how to blend in, how to look like I belong. It's really quite simple, most people don't expect someone would willingly subject themselves to school without the possibility of earning a degree."

"And your reason for not trying to pay tuition?"

Werner hung his head in shame. "There is really no excuse, sir. I come from a tribe of gypsies, and have never had much in the way of money or property." Werner looked the good professor in the eye. "We are a poor people, sir. My father does not have any money to speak of, and I wouldn't ask him for it if he did. Education to a gypsy is a frivolous matter, but one I chose to pursue on my own. I barely make enough money to live off of, plus purchase books and other supplies. I never meant to deprive the University of their rightful due, but without the papers to say that I've attended and graduated from a secondary school, they would not admit me to the college even if I could pay. So you see, I had little choice. I only wanted to make something of myself, something I could not get in the country I come from."

"And you say you want to study medicine, to become a doctor?"

"Yes, sir, more than anything."

"Well, your academic scores in my classes at least would show that you're certainly capable," the Professor mused. "Many of these classes are graduate level work, and you seem to have an astounding level of competence already. You know, I had half expected you to be some old country doctor, auditing my classes to brush up on his skills and keep me honest. Do you have any idea of what field of medicine you'd wish to study?"

"Field, sir?"

"Yes, you know. Pediatrics, Internal Medicine, Gynecology, Neurology, Pathology …you know, your specialty field?"

"Yes sir, all of that."

"All of …" The Professor laughed, than saw that the boy was being serious. He shook his head. "Well, my field of interest has always been internal medicine and oncology, a new field here at the school. We've been looking at cancer cells in the lab lately, what are your views about treating carcinoma, Werner?"

"I have been interested in that as well," Werner replied. He paused for a moment, not sure what the professor wanted. Dr. Messler was quietly scrutinizing him, waiting for an answer. "I have thought that, on reading the literature, that the incidence of cancers is higher among industrialized people, and occurring at a younger age, than it is in my people."

"Your people?"

"Yes, sir, the gypsies." Werner smiled, and said, "Our women particularly are exceptionally long lived, that is, if they don't die in child birth or by violence. Most of our elders stay relatively healthy and robust, well into their 70's, some to age 90 or 100, even. Cancer of the internals is quite rare, although there is a high rate of benign skin papilloma. It may be that their diet, being natural and prepared fresh, or their reluctance to live in cities, where the effluent of industry is so prominent, has reduced their natural risk factors. Or, it could be genetic, as certain populations in the Orient seem to have a lower incidence of cancers that are common in the west."

"You seem to know a lot about the incidence of disease among your people," Dr. Messler mused. "How do you come about that knowledge? The written records of the European gypsies have been nigh well non-existent, in my experience."

"Well, I have been treating them as I have traveled, sir," Werner answered.

"You have? Without a license?" The doctor was a little perturbed by this, and the anxiousness in his voice was clear. "Do you accept payment for this service? That could be considered a breach of ethics that the school would not tolerate, to practice medicine without a license is a very serious thing indeed."

"They're family, sir," Werner answered quickly, "they have no one else to treat them. I have only accepted what they could spare in return, food, clothing, a place to stay. That is how we have always done it in our culture. No fraud was ever intended."

"And how do you come about your medicines? You are acquiring them honestly, I hope?"

"Yes, sir, of course," Werner opened his satchel and pulled out some of the items he always kept with him. "I've been studying the healing properties of certain herbs, roots, and flowers all my life. There is a language of healing known by my people that has been passed down from generation to generation. It is a skill that uses both medicinal treatment, and touch, and the healing power of the spirit, if you will. I've been studying it since I was a young boy."

"Indeed? How young?"

"Since I was five or six. I was mentored by the elder healer in our tribe, she was the one who first taught me the healing arts." Werner pulled out a gnarled root, and handed it to the professor. "That one is a simple analgesic, similar to your aspirin," he said with a smile, "actually better than your aspirin, it digests better. And this one is used for fever, this herb is for the sour stomach. This one when brewed as a tea is effective at reducing the symptoms of a head cold."

Dr. Messler smelled the bag of tea leaves, it had a pleasant, sweet odor. "Do these actually work?"

"Yes, for the most part they're quite effective. Although there are always individual variations," Werner replied. "I do not mean that they should supplant the pharmaceuticals developed in the lab, those have had their place as well. But I would like to see that these old ways not be discarded completely out of hand. Some of the synthetic antibiotics and antiseptics, the modern penicillin, for instance, these can not be replicated by our herbal remedies. But we have found that there are natural ways to encourage the body to create its own resistance to infection, as long as the onset is not too severe."

"I agree completely," Dr. Messler replied. "There must be some truth to these old witches brews, if for nothing else than the testimony of the longevity enjoyed by your people. Modern science has often forgotten that, in our headlong rush toward progress and innovation, there is a history to these ancient remedies. And in your travels, have you performed any other healing tasks? Trauma care, for instance, or surgery?"

"Well, yes sir, not often, but out of necessity. I have often had to set bones or … ahem, remove bullets."

"Nothing to be ashamed of, young man," the professor nodded solemnly. "We live in difficult and sometimes violent times."

"And a week or so ago I was called up to the camp to deliver twins," Werner added.

"Twins!"

"Yes sir, two healthy boys," Werner smiled, "the mother was quite young and narrow in the hips, one of the boys had the umbilicus of the other wrapped around its neck, and the babies were quite impacted in the birth canal. But it went well, all are now doing fine."

"They should have been seen in a hospital, Werner," the professor scolded. "That is a very dangerous, life threatening condition, for both the mother and the babies."

"Yes, sir, I know." Werner paused to choose his words carefully. "They would not have taken the mother to the hospital. That is not their way."

"And they would have died if not for you."

Werner was silent. He was thinking about his own mother, and how she had died in child birth, but he would not have revealed that much to the professor.

"Then they were lucky to have had you there," the professor complimented solemnly. He added enthusiastically. "I daresay you have already begun to practice the arts of medicine quite admirably. But getting back to my particular field of study, how would you cure, good Doctor, this affluence of western carcinoma?" Dr. Messler asked.

Werner twirled his hat in his hand, nervous about being quizzed so precisely. "It has appeared to me, studying the abnormal cells in the lab, that there is something that is triggering the change within the cell, some instruction being sent to the cells to mutate in this harmful way. Perhaps if the causal factor were genetic in nature, then we could substitute the genes that trigger or promote the carcinoma, for the ones that don't."

"You mean eugenics." Dr. Messler frowned, that wasn't the answer he'd wanted to hear.

"No, no, not at all. I mean gene replacement, a treatment whereby the cancer is defeated at the molecular level, by taking away the bad genes and replacing them with a healthy genetic structure."

Dr. Messler's frown grew, but not for the same reason. "That is a radical idea, almost science fiction, we haven't even begun to decode the human genome."

"But it could be done," Werner insisted, "As long as there were healthy populations from which to copy the healthy DNA. Of course I like your latest theory too, the idea of using dense beams of high energy light to excise the cancer cells. If only there was a way to target them precisely, and energize just the tumor without damaging the surrounding tissues. It certainly seems more exact than hacking away with saws and scalpels" Werner tactfully referred to Dr. Messler's latest paper on laser light treatment, which he had just recently read, and then continued, "but the more we try to cut out the tumors the more we risk the life of the patient without any guarantee that the disease is cured. Why not try to stop the mutations at the cellular level, by taking away their instructions to mutate in the first place?"

Dr Messler chomped on his pipe again, and then said, "You have some interesting ideas, Mr. Von Doom. A mind like yours would indeed be an asset to this university and to medicine as a whole."

Werner was quietly hopeful, but said nothing.

"This is extremely unorthodox, and there is no guarantee that I will be able to do anything at all," Dr. Messler finally said. "Your enthusiasm is refreshing Von Doom. You do not know how many ne'er do wells and bourgeois prima donnas we must suffer with in the name of higher education, men who believe their place in the world is guaranteed by right of birth. Many of your academic colleagues have never known a day of hard labor, never broken a sweat other than in the sports that they distract themselves with, and an original thought would not pass by a dozen of them in their lifetimes. They plod along in ignorance and intellectual sloth, marking time in anticipation of a life of leisure once they've finished their time at University. We have great men, yes, but even great men have to be reminded that their positions are a privilege earned by hard work and honest insight, not a right born of their station. To think of where you've come from, and where you've been, how close you may have come to toiling away in obscurity. Such a tragedy would be a profound loss, not just to academia but to the world. A mind like yours should not be left to labor in the kitchen, not if I have any say in the matter."

"But there are rigors of bureaucracy that must be satisfied, and to have you admitted as a hardship student will take much work. I see that there could be great promise in your future, my boy, great promise indeed. Times are changing, and we within the halls of science must embrace that change, and throw out the strictures of our former lives. We must embrace all people and all cultures, for the insight and enlightenment of the world depends on it. Nay, I see that someday soon even women will be studying alongside our young men, and then we will have to watch out, for certain!" Dr. Messler winked scandalously at Werner, who was both dumbfounded and beaming at this unexpected turn of events. Dr Messler finished with, "I cannot guarantee success in this, there are many stern faced men who will have to see this as I do, not the least of which is the Dean. I will have to face the scholarship committee as well. You must be patient, give me at least a week. But I will see what I can do."

"Thank you, Professor, Dr. Messler, thank you so much," Werner shook his hand enthusiastically from across the desk, and then sighed and smiled, and rushed out the door.

Werner could hardly believe it, he could hardly contain his excitement, and as soon as he could he sent word via a gypsy that worked in town, to take a message to Cynthia. "My dearest love, you must come to town, tomorrow, I have something wonderful to tell you. And bring your new shoes and your finest dress. I would love to have you join me for supper, we will dine at the finest restaurant, that is, the finest one I can afford! Will you come? I anxiously await your reply. My heart is yours forever, Werner."


	8. Chapter 8 The Eight of Swords

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT**

**Chapter ****Eight: **_**The Eight of Swords**_

**Hungary, 1956**

It was a cold, wet morning in early November. The gray sky drizzled fat, lazy drops that were as annoying as a real rain if only half as wet, and the sun glowed dimly behind a shroud of clouds that threatened worse days in the winter to come. The scattered and few town folk that were seen on the streets hustled about their business, most were clad in long woolen overcoats, their grim faces hidden by hats pulled low against the wet and chilling day. The ladies stepped lightly around muddy puddles in the dirty streets, hurrying to fill their covered baskets with fresh bread and a few tired vegetables from the farmer's stand, before rushing home to a warm fire and a respite from the chill. A few businessmen stood outside their shop doors with worried eyes that scanned the skies to the east, broken by frequent glances at their watches and quiet muttering. Many of the shops remained closed that morning, many others would close early. The ones that stayed open did a fair amount of trade, but the streets were unusually devoid of their regular complement of shoppers. Some of the younger men walking about stopped to whisper in small groups of three or four, with furtive glances to the streets and the steam from their breath warming hands held in front of their faces. Most of the young men wandering about seemed to be workmen, tradesmen or students. Their elders were mostly hidden behind shop doors or tucked safely inside one of the tall office buildings. Sometimes something passed between the young men, only to disappear into the heavy folds and deep pockets of winter coats. These clandestine gatherings were like flurries of leaves in the wind, gathered in a furious disorder and then quickly and silently dispersed. Only the tall drab buildings bore silent witness to whatever sedition passed between those wary young men. A police officer walking sternly upon the slick cobblestone streets saw nothing of their meeting but the faint ripple of a passing shoe upon a dirty puddle.

Werner von Doom alone seemed unaffected by whatever mad paranoia had seized the Hungarian city. He had no time for such foolishness. It had been almost a week since he'd met Cynthia at the gypsy camp, and in another week she'd be leaving with the rest of the gypsies headed for a wintering site in neighboring Latveria. They were heartbroken at being separated, but Werner still hadn't heard from Professor Messler about his request for formal admission into the Medical School. He was hopeful that word would come soon, and he had every confidence that Messler would see it through. Still, he'd been unwilling to ask Cynthia to stay with him, until he knew for sure.

"What does it mean, admission to the school?" Cynthia had asked him that first night in town as they had dined in a little café near the university. It wasn't very late in the evening but they had the place virtually to themselves. Cynthia's chaperone for the evening, Werner's old friend Boris, had lured the chef to a table at the back of the kitchen for a game of dice and a taste of liquor a bit stronger than the watered down wine he served at the tables in the café. The rest of the patrons had retired for the evening. It hardly mattered. The two young lovers only had eyes for each other as they sat under the light of a flickering candle around a simple round table covered with a red and white check cloth. "Aren't you already attending classes there?"

"Yes, but it means that I'll be a legitimate student of the school of medicine, and that I'll eventually be able to petition for a degree in medicine," Werner explained. "If I succeed in my studies then it means that I will become a doctor, and then I can legally practice medicine in a hospital, or I could even have a clinic of my own."

"But you already perform medicine, Werner," Cynthia protested, "and I have seen no one better at the healing trade than you. What difference does a degree make?"

"It makes all the difference, it's what I've been studying for all my life! With a degree and a license I will be able to practice anywhere in the world, legally. I will be able to prescribe medicines that I cannot get without a license. It will mean freedom," he paused, "for _us_ …" he added pointedly, hoping that she understood his meaning.

Cynthia toyed with her plate of spaghetti, twirling the fork around the remaining noodles and pushing the sauce about absently. "And how long will this take, this medical school?"

"I'm not sure exactly, two, maybe three years." Werner had to admit to himself that he really had no idea. It could even be longer, he thought, but the concept of two years apart from Cynthia was almost more than he could bear.

"Two years! That long? But what of the gypsies? Who will take care of the gypsies?"

"I will always be there for our families, whenever they need me."

"Even after your degree, even if you become a doctor? They will have no one to care for them if you leave them for the hospital in the city. Oh, Werner, what if you become like the _gadje_, like all the other outsiders with their paper money and time pieces and fancy cars. You will forget your people, our ways, and the healing plants of the earth mother. What will you become then, living so long under a roof instead of under the stars as we were meant to?"

Werner reluctantly remembered that night when he had suddenly felt afraid to walk the darkened path in the forest, like some stupid city child. He shuddered inwardly, but then shook his head. "I will never forget the gypsies," he promised. "It is because of the gypsies that I do this, because of a promise I made to my teacher, to my mother and father. I need to do this to be a better healer, and use both the old ways along with the western ways to make for a better life for our people."

"I don't see how you've done it, all this time. You're so brave. I could never live among the _gadje_ the way that you do," Cynthia admitted honestly. "I think I would die if I could not walk out onto the fields of grass and listen to the whisper of the wind in the trees. There is so much stone here, the city is as cold and dead as the streets and buildings, it's like walking in a tomb. Even at night, you can barely see the stars here for the want of a little darkness. All these lanterns trying to make the night into daytime. It's unnatural. Promise me, Werner, promise me that you will never forget the gypsies, that you will always come back to us," Cynthia pleaded. She was rightfully worried that soon she might never see him again, despite her prior premonitions.

Her words were like a dagger in his heart, carving out the little bit of hope he had left that she might stay with him for awhile. He wondered if he could change her mind. "My love, even after all our people have put you through, the injustices and hardships, the betrayal, do you really love them so much that you wouldn't want to leave them, maybe for just a little while, to see something more of the world?"

"Oh, I have wondered," Cynthia admitted, and she thought about her hidden talents, so dark and secret that she had to hide them from everyone, from their clan, from her aunt, and even from Werner. Little magics – fortune telling, and simple spell casting, these were not feared among the gypsies. Indeed, they often profited from these little magic tricks, and the gullible _gadje_ who believed in them. Because of that there were as many charlatans as there were true adepts in their ranks. But the big magics, the real magic, it was as taboo among their people as it was forbidden and feared in the rest of the world. Even what little she knew was enough to jeopardize her very life should she be uncovered. The old superstitions were slow to pass. Witches were still stoned, or worse, burned to death, in certain parts of the world. Still, she felt bound to the gypsies by more than blood. "They are my family, and I have seen enough of the world to know that those on the outside do not understand us so well. I have seen what happens to our people when forced to conform to the ways of the cities and their governments. Even where blood does not bind us, the _way_ still does. I would not want my children to be ignorant of the true way of the people, and what it means to live their life with thier feet on the land. I do not blame the elders for their judgments, our traditions are important and they only want what is best for the clan. I too only want what is best for our people, but my ambition is not so great as yours."

"I give you credit for your loyalty, Cynthia," Werner praised her frankly. "To have gone through all that you have, and still stay true to the family, you are as strong of character as you are stunning of beauty."

Cynthia blushed a little, but then kicked him under the table. "It's not as if I were some master-less dog, wagging my tale for the scraps they toss!" she teased him mercilessly.

"Ow! Far from it!" Werner cried out. "No dog could have hit me so many times as you have and not been cast out into the cold!" he protested. "And pity the man who thinks he is your Master! He will be surprised to find his puppy turn into a ferocious she-wolf!" Werner laughed and Cynthia joined him good naturedly, and they held hands gently across the small table, Cynthia's small delicate hand disappearing inside his large, rough ones.

Then she raised her eyes to meet his, and said, "The old storytellers in my tribe would oft tell a tale of a she-wolf who raised not only her own cubs, but a young gypsy boy who'd wandered off from the family as a mere babe. But the gentle mother wolf spared the infant and let him suckle beside her own pups. She wanted nothing more than to raise her family in peace, but they were terrorized by a mighty lion, which would steal and devour any young or unprotected cubs that were unlucky enough to wander 'cross his path. And the great lion was a bully and a coward, and he wanted the naked human baby for his own supper more than anything. Yet so fierce was this she-wolf, that when the lion threatened her family she alone had the strength and courage to stand her ground, and she attacked the great lion with such ferocity that she drove it away into the night. And the boy child would grow to be a man, and when he became a man he returned to that forest land and slew the fearsome lion with his own hands. From that day forward, he would wear the skin of the lion as a cloak, to honor his wolf mother's courage."

Werner smiled, "I know the story. But the way I heard it, the she-wolf was mortally wounded in the battle with the lion. And when the boy returned as a man, it was to avenge her death."

Cynthia lowered her gaze and turned away, a slight, sad smile on her lips and a tear forming in the corner of her eye. "Yes," she answered softly, "that's the way I heard the story also."

Werner reached across the table to wipe away the tear with his gentle hands. "Come now," he whispered softly, "it's only a story."

"Yes, I know," Cynthia replied, and for a moment she rested her cheek lovingly in his palm. "Anyway, would you have me wearing funny hats and fancy shoes, like the silly Hungarian women do? I could hardly run out into the streets of the city in my bare feet, and it would ruin the delight of wearing nice shoes for a special occasion, like tonight." She rubbed her small foot softly now against his leg.

"Were I a doctor, we would be rich and you could have as many shoes as you like, one for every day of the week if you wanted," Werner smiled. "And all our dinners would be special occasions. You could even go barefoot, if you wanted to."

"I will go barefoot," Cynthia insisted. "It seems you would have me parading about town in my finest dress when you yourself have broken old shoes that let in the rain water and a coat that barely keeps out the cold. You must take better care of yourself or the winter will jump in to bite you, and what will the rich doctor do then? I will have to have Auntie Becca sew you a new coat before this one is little more than threads." She picked at the too short sleeves of his old coat with her gentle scolding.

Now it was Werner's turn to be embarrassed, as he looked down at his pathetic shoes and threadbare top coat. "I will endeavor to be better dressed, so as not to embarrass the lady to be seen with me," he answered earnestly.

Cynthia leaned forward and kissed him sweetly on the cheek. He lifted his head in surprise. "You are as fine a man as I have ever met," she told him, "I would be happy to be seen on your arm in the greatest palaces of the world, whether or not they call you Doctor von Doom, and whether or not your shoes are all one piece."

Werner smiled, "It would not be seemly for the good Doctor to go barefoot to minister to the high court kings."

"We are gypsies," Cynthia said with a twinkle in her eye, "we can dance with bare feet upon the marble halls and none would dare say we cannot. Or we will cast the evil eye upon them, and send them quaking in fear to hide in their beds!" She laughed, and now it was Werner's turn to share in her mirth. Then she turned serious again, her mood changing as swiftly as the water in a rushing river. "You still haven't promised me, Werner, you must promise me this one thing."

"Anything," he answered.

"Promise you will never leave the gypsies, no matter what happens," she said, "you will always be the healer for our gypsies. Promise?"

Werner looked deep into her green eyes, their hands intertwined across the table, and he answered solemnly, "I promise."

For the next few nights the lovers had met and continued their intense but chaste courtship, under the sheltering gaze of Boris or one of the other trusted elders. They were happy and trouble free, stealing a kiss when no one was looking and sheltering calmly in each other's arms. Neither one mentioned that they would soon be parting, and Werner quietly saved his money, and contemplated how he would go about the task of asking for her hand in marriage.

That dreary November morning Werner von Doom sat on a hard wooden bench with his stocking feet warming by a small stove, as his friend the shoemaker was jabbering on about the news and working his magic on Werner's old shoes. Something about a poor old soldier, stabbed and hung upon a lamppost by a murderous mob of rebels, right in the middle of the town square, his corpse savaged and burned for all to see. The dead man had been accused of being a spy for the Soviet secret police, and that cruel rumor was all it took for the mob to instigate his violent demise. The horrifying picture was there on the front page of the daily newspaper, the perpetrators gathered about the blackened corpse as if they were immune from retribution for the foul deed. But the shoemaker's hands were busy on Werner's poor shoes even as he talked and Werner paid little attention, lost in his own thoughts as he patiently waited for the repairs he sorely needed. He'd sold a huge pile of school books that morning, enough to pay for a new coat and shirt, purchased second hand, and to finally have his leaky shoes fixed. He had enough money left over for a fine dinner with his new love, and more importantly, a golden ring he hoped he would place upon her finger that evening.

"You should not stay in town tonight, Werner," the old shoemaker was saying. "It's becoming too dangerous around here. There was gunfire in the square. Lawlessness, I say, lawlessness and anarchy. Where are the police? No one knows, no one knows who is on whose side. They said that Chairman Nagy was going to talk with Eisenhower of the Americans. Do you think they will come?"

"Who?"

"The Americans, boy, haven't you been listening?" the shoemaker didn't wait for an answer. "Ach, there, your shoes are done. No, I will not accept payment, I owe you too much already for your gypsy healing touch. Those doctors at the big school, they don't know a thing! You, you have a magic power in your hands, young man. Look, these old hands, I can move them without pain now. It's been a miracle, and I get to keep my shop open a few more years, God willing!"

"Thank you, thank you so much!" Werner quickly put his shoes back on, grateful for a few more pennies to spend on Cynthia. He bundled up against the cold, turning up the collar of his coat as he hurried out the door. So lost in his thoughts was he that he ran right into another man who was standing just outside the door, under the shelter of the overhanging eave. His right shoulder clipped the back of the man with some force, but even though the other man was smaller than Werner by at least a foot or more, it was like hitting a brick wall. Werner stumbled sideways as he bounced off the stranger, and barely kept his balance.

"Pardon me, sir," Werner said immediately, tipping his hat and bowing a little as he passed by. "I didn't see you standing there!"

The stranger muttered something under his breath. He was smoking a stub of a cigar, and his rain soaked hat was low over his eyes. Werner thought he heard him quietly say "Watch where you're going, bub," in English, but the stranger didn't lift his head or acknowledge Werner in any way, and Werner was already halfway across the street. If Werner had stopped to think about that for a moment, the day's events might have been different. As it was, he barely consciously acknowledged the response at all, and he hurried onto his next appointment.

It was nearly midday when Cynthia met him at their usual meeting place, a fountain near the center of the school. The early morning drizzle had subsided, but the day was still gray and cold. She was an hour early, and coincidentally, so was he. The anxiousness with which he started the day melted away as soon as he saw her, and his heart swelled with joy. Her anxiousness however, was only just beginning. As soon as she saw him at the fountain, she raced across the courtyard to meet him. Her hair flew behind her as her skirt billowed above her rushing feet. Boris trailed dutifully behind her at a more somber pace. Werner didn't notice the dour and worried expression creasing Boris' brow, for once he laid eyes on Cynthia he could see only her. But he could tell right away that she had been crying.

"Darling, what is it?" he asked immediately as she flew into his arms. "What's the matter? Why have you been crying?" He smoothed the hair back from her face but her tears were flowing anew. He reached into his ever present satchel for a handkerchief, and held it up to her moist cheeks.

She had tried to put on a brave face, but once she saw him she could no longer sustain it. She felt her heart was breaking, and the sobs were welling up inside her faster than she could push them back down. "Oh Werner, oh my love," she finally choked out, "we're leaving … the whole tribe is leaving. Tonight!"

Werner felt like an anvil was crushing his chest. "Tonight?" he asked incredulously. "No, we have another week, it's not yet the Feast's Day!" He looked up from her hair and acknowledged Boris, who now joined them. The older man gave Werner a sobering look. "What's the meaning of this, Boris? What's happening?"

Boris regarded him with a serious gaze. "She's right, Werner, we are leaving tonight for Latveria. Half the tribe has already left camp and will be in the mountain passes by nightfall. Cynthia and Rebecca will follow with the rest by dusk."

Cynthia interrupted, and between sobs cried, "I came as quick as I could, I didn't know until this morning. Rebecca is packing our caravan now, she will be waiting for me. Oh Werner, I do not want to leave you, but we must! We have no choice!"

"But why? Why?" Werner tenderly cleared her face of her tears. "Boris, why are they leaving?"

"It is the Soviets, Werner, they're here," Boris answered. "They have been quietly moving their tanks into position around the city for a week, under cover of darkness and unknown to the rebels or the interim government. The rest of the Soviet army is only a short march away. They only await for the final order to move in. It was all we could do to sneak past their blockade to come here to warn you. It could happen at any hour now, they will attack the city, and the Russians will seal the borders. We must get out now, or it will be just like Poland, and Romania. Afterward there will be no escape."

"The Soviets? No, it cannot be. The rebellion is over, the Soviets have withdrawn. The Hungarians have won their freedom and their democracy. The Austrians, the Soviets let the Austrians have their pact. Why not Hungary as well? We were to be free here at last. How could this be? This cannot be happening, not now!" Werner held Cynthia close, unwilling to let her go, as if he could protect her from this lingering menace against which he knew there was no defense.

"The Soviets!" Cynthia echoed. "Werner you must not stay here, you must come with us!" Cynthia pleaded. "The communists will kill you, I have seen what they can do. They will send you to the gulag. There is no place for gypsies in their world!"

"Boris, you knew this would happen?" Werner asked. He could feel his defenses crumbling, his world beginning to become undone all around him. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I only suspected," Boris admitted. "Nobody believed the Soviets would come back. Not after the withdrawal from Parliament. But Kruschev's machine will not be denied, my friend, and Chairman Mao is no friend of democracy. The Hungarians are doomed." As if to punctuate this dismal revelation, there was a distant clap of thunder and a whistling whine like a banshee, and somewhere not very far away, a booming explosion. The trio of gypsies instinctively ducked, and a plume of smoke and debris billowed up into the gray sky as a row of buildings not far away collapsed to the ground. The bomb blast was followed by a staccato of automatic weapons fire, and more heavy artillery strikes plowed into distant buildings as the Soviet war engine rapidly rolled into the city, reducing centuries of culture, art, history and learning to blood and dust.

"This way, hurry!" Werner instinctively acted to seek shelter. He continued to hold onto Cynthia, to protect her as best he could, as they raced for a nearby doorway into one of the school buildings. Tanks, he thought with bleak sadness, and then he remembered that first night walking back from the gypsy camp in the lonely darkness, and the strange vehicles he had seen up on the road in the darkness when he'd missed his chance for a ride. Those were tanks he suddenly realized, Soviet tanks, backed by the Soviet army. It was the worst possible scenario, an end to democracy and a return to darkness for this once bright land. And here they were, innocent of any collusion, but still caught up in it. He had been so lost in his love for Cynthia that he had barely acknowledged all the subtle changes, the signs of unrest, and hints of a war to come. He suddenly felt very small and helpless.

"There will be only temporary shelter in these buildings," Boris told him when they had caught their breath. "The army will target the government buildings first, but the University was a stronghold of rebel support, they will come here soon after. We must escape the city."

"Werner, please, come with us!" Cynthia pleaded.

Werner looked back out the window onto the now deserted courtyard. It was all crumbling around him, all his hopes and dreams for the future. He felt the gold ring he had hidden in the pocket of his trousers that morning, so bright and rich with promise. Another bomb blast shook the building from closer than ever, dust raining down upon them from above. The lights suddenly went out. He ran back to Cynthia and held her again.

"How can we escape, Boris? Can you get us out of the city?"

Boris calmly placed a hand on Werner's shoulder. "I will have to find us some transportation. Give me twenty minutes, wait here."

Boris slipped back out of the door and was gone, racing down the walkway toward a place where his contact in the city would meet him. Werner was astounded at his calm strength. Boris was a few years older than he, but none the less spry. And there was worldliness to Boris that he lacked. He was a good leader, and a good friend.

"Oh Werner, I'm so sorry," Cynthia said quietly.

Werner smiled down at her, glad that she was no longer crying. "Don't be sorry, love," he said gently, "none of this is your fault."

"But your dreams … your schooling," Cynthia looked into his eyes, but he looked away.

"It will have to wait then," Werner clenched his jaw bravely, hiding his disappointment. There were more important things to worry about now.

"Yes, but …. What is that?" Cynthia stopped suddenly and stared at something against the far wall behind him.

Werner turned and followed her gaze. The room was dim, lit only by the light that filtered in through the glass doors leading out onto the courtyard. Behind them was a tall display cabinet that covered the back wall of the large entryway. It was filled with stones and rocks and printed diagrams, a large topography map and some other parchment pieces, plus a few dusty old awards and notices of achievement. But within that cabinet, something was glowing. An unearthly faint blue light pulsated softly and rhythmically like a beating heart from within the display of ancient rocks. It bathed the entire room in an eerie blue glow.

"It's the geology department display," Werner said absently, answering her question as best he could, but as bewildered by the strange blue light as she was. They both approached the case their eyes transfixed upon the light pulsing from within. Even more astonishing, as the two gypsies stepped closer to the glass the glow seemed to intensify, enveloping the entire room in its spectral luminescence. The two gypsies were enchanted for a moment, the war around them was forgotten, nothing seemed to exist but the pulsating glow of that unnatural light.


	9. Chapter 9 The Knight of Swords

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT **

**Chapter Nine: _The Knight of Swords _**

**Hungary, 1956**

The two gypsies stood transfixed in front of the geology display case at the University where Werner von Doom often attended classes. They had seemingly forgotten for the moment that all around that storied Hungarian city, the Soviet army was laying siege. A handful of rebels and nationalists were banding together in a vain attempt to thwart the Soviet imperialist advance. A month prior those same rebels had ousted the Soviets from their government building, and to the surprise of most the world the Russian army had withdrawn. But now they were facing the full force of the Soviet engine, attack tanks, artillery and seasoned ground troops. The rebels had second and third hand weapons, scarce munitions, homemade bullets, scattered leadership, Molotov cocktails and other improvised explosives. They had only a few thousand fighters, stalwart nationalist pride and bravery on their side. They were being slaughtered by the hundreds.

All this was lost on the two young gypsies whose misfortune was to have been unwillingly caught in the middle of the inferno. A strange blue glow in the darkened hallway where they had taken refuge had pulled them almost unconsciously toward the glass fronted display. Werner had passed through this hallway countless times, but he had never stopped to look at the eclectic collection gathered by the proud geology department staff. Now it seemed to draw him forward. It wasn't just his curiosity, but something was actually pulling at him. Not at him, he finally realized, but at his satchel. He thought it was Cynthia for a moment, and he turned to look at her. But she was standing on his right, and his satchel was resting on his left hip as always with the strap around his shoulder. Only it wasn't resting there anymore.

"What the…?" he started to say.

"Look!" Cynthia exclaimed.

His satchel was actually levitating off of his hip, as if magnetized by something within the display case. He stepped closer to the glass. The satchel smacked against the front of the glass with a crack that startled the two gypsies. They involuntarily jumped as if another bomb had gone off. The blue glow inside the case was lighting their faces in an eerie luminescence that sparked ever brighter. It drew them closer.

"It's coming from that big rock there!" Cynthia said, pointing to a large dark rock, prominently displayed at the center of the display. "What is it?"

"It's a meteorite," Werner read from the information card next to the rock. "It says it was recovered in 1541 from the Danube river valley." There was more written there too, about how the strange rock had been in the collection of a doubtless wealthy benefactor, about how it had been handed down from generation to generation for 400 years. How the rock normally would have been melted for the trace precious ores it contained, but then it was saved from destruction by that long dead scientist who saw more worth in it for science and study, and who's ancestor later made a gift of it to the school. But Werner wasn't very interested in the history of the thing at the moment.

The big rock was brownish, reddish black, with a rough and jagged surface that appeared streaked with burn marks. It was about a foot in diameter, irregularly shaped, not quite round, with flecks of silvery metallic ore sparkling on its surface. But there on the lower right side corner, half imbedded in the rock as if the rocky substrate had grown around it like a living tissue, was a single blue gem stone with a smooth glassy surface, about the size of a small lime. From what they could see of it the blue gem appeared to be perfectly round, like a very large marble. It was glowing from within as if from some internal energy source. If the two gypsies had looked closer, they would have seen chisel marks in the stone around the blue gem, where someone had unsuccessfully tried to free the single blue stone from its rocky tomb. But they were both dazzled by the translucent, pulsating glow, each for their own unspoken but equal reasons. Werner's satchel remained plastered to the side of the glass in front of the meteorite display as if it were caught on an invisible hook.

Werner opened his satchel and reached inside. For a moment he thought that maybe the meteorite was magnetic, and the unseen force which had latched onto his canvas bag was pulling at the pistol he always carried there. But as soon as he opened the bag he knew that wasn't it at all. Next to the hand gun and buried by the pouches and vials of healing supplies that he always carried, was a small hidden pocket sewn into the side of the rucksack. He unsnapped the flap and withdrew a small blue glass stone that was virtually an exact match for the one inside the centuries' old meteorite. His familiar stone was glowing like it never had before.

He barely heard Cynthia gasp reflexively beside him when he pulled the stone out of his bag.

He had nearly forgotten about the blue gem stone he'd had since he was a boy. He had a distant, now vague memory of finding it in this very same satchel, stolen from a German soldier in a remote Yugoslavian village outside of Latveria. The heavy denim rucksack, the pistol, and the blue stone were all that was left from that adventure. The golden goblet and silver candlesticks had been sold and forgotten years ago. But despite all his troubles and hardships, he'd always kept the blue stone, hidden away within the deep recesses of his ever present school bag. He never thought much about it, although he had from time to time wondered if he should try to sell it to help put food on his table. No matter how difficult times were, he never could bring himself to get rid of it. He wasn't exactly sure why.

Now he was surprised to see that there was another one, a twin, and it was far older than he had ever imagined. As he pulled the blue gem out of his shoulder bag, the canvas bag fell back from the glass display as if released by an unseen grip, falling to its normal resting position on his hip. The glowing blue gem in his hand had always been warm to touch, but now it suddenly came alive. He realized that even though he had passed this display hundreds of times in the past, he had never walked close enough to the glass for the two gems to react in the vivid, almost sentient way in which they were reacting now. Beams of blue white energy jumped from the gem in his hand to the gem inside the rock, and back again, illuminating the whole room in an unearthly, flickering glow of cool lightning. Although the air around his hand crackled and sparked with that strange energy, it didn't hurt. They both could feel the energy in the air around them, raising the hair on their arms and tingling their senses. But the spectral energy caused them no harm as it danced silently back and forth between the two blue stones. He could also feel the blue gem in his hand pulling toward the one in the rock, as if they were magnetized. The stones crackled and flashed together for a bit, as if the two baubles were greeting each other exuberantly, and then they were both quiet, the bluish glow slowly dissipating around them until it was just a faint luminescence.

"Wow," Werner finally said with a gasp, realizing that he had been unconsciously holding his breath the whole time. He continued to hold the blue ball in his hand up to the glass, the familiar warm glow of the gem gently pulsing about his fingers. The gem in the meteorite had also gone quiet, now exhibiting just a faint, pleasant internal glow.

Cynthia stepped up closer to the glass, her eyes fixed onto the strange meteorite. Her heart was pounding in her chest, overwhelmed by what she had seen. Even the bombs and the tanks and the fearful sounds of war outside were forgotten. She turned to Werner who was standing there with a kind of curious smile on his lips. She reached up and closed his fingers around the gem.

"Hide it away," she whispered to him urgently, "keep it safe, tell no one … tell no one what we saw here."

"What?" Werner answered softly, then, "I mean, yes, sure. Of course. Who would ever believe it anyway? But you saw that, right? You saw it too? I didn't just imagine that. I've never seen anything like it before in my life!"

Cynthia almost answered, "I have," but she deferred. "A meteorite, that is a rock that falls from space?" she asked quietly, carefully subduing her own intense curiosity and desire.

Werner put the blue gem back into its pouch, and answered, "Yes, they usually burn up in the atmosphere, unless they are very large. So they say. I wonder if it's radioactive?" His scientist mind suddenly clicked off a series of serious warnings, and he stepped away from the case, pulling Cynthia back with him. The glamour had worn off. "Maybe we should keep our distance from that thing." And his mind suddenly turned back to their current predicament. "Where the hell is Boris?"

He stepped back up to the glass doors looking out onto the wide school courtyard. The sound of shelling and gunfire had receded into the distance, but a new vision caused him to gasp. A quartet of shadows was moving swiftly on the roof of the three story building that formed the long leg of an "L" with the building in which they were hiding. That building was the east wing of the Medical School. He never would have seen them if he hadn't been looking to the sky just then, for in the next instance the dark silhouettes of the four black clad soldiers disappeared in the shadows of the roof cornice and the tower that loomed above the arcade leading into the wide courtyard. Werner instinctively pulled away from the window to where he could look out without being seen by those on the roof, if they were still there. The next instant four slender ropes simultaneously dropped down from the roof, followed by the four agile, black clad operatives slithering down the ropes from their hiding places on the roof. Their actions were so precise, so well-timed, it was as if they were choreographed to a waltz. Each climber stopped at a place in front of a second floor window.

Werner gasped with sudden recognition, "That's Dr. Messler's office!"

Cynthia came quickly to his side. "What is it?" She looked out the window to see what he was looking at, and Werner grabbed her to pull her close into the shadows. There was a quick burst of gunfire, and the four soldiers swung on their ropes in unison, bursting through the second floor windows with a crash to disappear inside the building.

Werner opened his satchel and pulled out the hand gun, unclipping it from the leather holster. He didn't know what he was going to do, one against four seemed like impossible odds, but he felt like he had to do something, he had to try. He pulled the satchel straps over his shoulder and handed it to Cynthia, who clutched it reflexively in front of her.

"Hold on to this, I'll be right back," he told her. He took a step toward a wide stairwell.

"You have a gun?" Cynthia asked incredulously, and then, "Where are you going? Werner, don't leave me!"

Werner came back quickly, and kissed her. "I'll be right back, I promise. I have to make sure Dr. Messler isn't hurt." He ran back to the stairs.

"Don't do anything stupid!" Cynthia called out after him.

Werner nodded, but he was afraid that he already had. At the top of the stairs there was a rarely used passageway on the second floor that linked the two buildings. The narrow hallway ran over the arcade, and wasn't really meant for regular passage. It was behind a door that had been unlocked by mistake, and some of the more seasoned students had been surreptitiously using it as a short cut when they were late to class. Werner had used it himself, once or twice over the last few months. He hoped it would allow him to sneak up to whoever it was had burst through the second floor windows on the other side. He hoped they wouldn't expect anyone to be coming from this direction.

He cautiously opened the door into the wide, marble lined corridor where a few days ago he had waited on a hard wooden bench for an hour for his opportunity to speak to Dr. Messler about his dilemma. Then as now the hallway was quiet, dim and deserted. He quickly raced down to Dr. Messler's office, a few doors down on the left. He had a clear memory of that space, of the entry and the anteroom. Perhaps if the attackers were inside the main office they wouldn't think to guard the entry from the hall. He hoped he might find refuge behind Hauptmann's desk until he could determine if Dr. Messler was in any danger. He also hoped that his kind mentor wasn't there at all, and the four mysterious figures were only there to rob the professor. In which case he would leave as quietly as he had come, not wishing to risk his life with these obviously well-trained and well-armed saboteurs. What he would do if Dr. Messler was in there with four armed gunmen, he didn't really think about that.

Werner crouched low, and with one hand still on the pistol he used the other hand to open the unlocked door into the professor's anteroom. He slowly pushed the door open a crack, listening for any noise or disturbance from inside. It was quiet, but he could hear faint muffled voices coming from the other room, and the vague sounds of movement. Still crouching, he eased the door open a little more, pushing at it gently with the muzzle of the gun. The door was now open far enough for him to slip inside, but still he waited and listened. His heart was pounding in his chest. He couldn't tell if any of the voices he heard was the professor. He thought one of them was a woman, and that alarmed him. Could the men have taken some poor girl hostage? His pulse quickened, and he crept into the room.

He was immediately hit by a heavy body hurtling toward him. But because he was still crouched low the attacker only clipped his head and shoulder, and went crashing head first into a metal filing cabinet beside the door. It was dark inside the anteroom, and Werner heard and felt his attacker more than he saw him. The man was huge, and a bestial growl escaped its throat as he quickly recovered and turned to face Werner again. The attacker had pulled him further inside the room with its first strike, so there was no escape back out into the hallway. Werner instinctively rolled away from him in the opposite direction toward the front desk, taking refuge in the corner with the desk between him and the enormous specter that rose up in the darkness like a demon shadow. With just a sliver of light coming into the room from the now open door to the hallway, Werner could see a broad, barrel like chest, huge arms, and a shaggy head. He was dressed head to foot in black, so Werner could see little other details than what showed in silhouette. The light caught a gleam of teeth that seemed to hold sharp fangs, as the man-beast appeared to smile over the guttural growl that filled the room. Werner shuddered, knowing that he was trapped.

Instinctively Werner raised the gun and pulled the trigger. – click – Nothing happened.

"Safety," said a voice behind him, speaking in English.

Werner's heart sank, as he looked up to see that there was another man standing there in the shadows behind the desk. Werner didn't move from where he was crouched, fully expecting to be either gunned down by this man behind him or mauled by the creature in front. He had used the gun so infrequently, in actuality he hadn't fired it in over a year, and so he'd forgotten to pull down the safety latch when he took it out of his satchel.

Then the man-beast was beside him in an instant. A huge paw grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet. His other hand stripped the pistol out of Werner's grip and dropped it on the desk. Werner could feel the hot breath of his assailant on his face.

"Back off, Creed," said the other man behind him. He nonchalantly picked up the gun from the desk and placed it in his belt.

The one called Creed continued to growl, but didn't heed the other's directive to "back off" and his grip tightened on Werner's collar. Both hands grasped the lapel of Werner's coat, almost lifting him off of his feet, and Werner would have sworn that he could feel the cold touch of claws upon his chest. "This worm was going to shoot me," Creed snarled.

"Before or after you almost took his head off?" the other man snidely replied. "He's just a kid, let him down." The man lit a match, bringing it up to light a stub of a cigar at his lips. As his face was illuminated, Werner gasped, suddenly recognizing the man he'd run into outside of the cobbler's shop earlier that day. This man was half the size of the beast that held him, but seemed to hold no fear of the larger man, and indeed, he was barking orders at the beast like a drill sergeant. Werner could feel Creed's grip relax ever so slightly.

"He will jeopardize the mission," Creed still protested, louder and angrier now. Werner shuddered.

"He'll do no such thing," the shorter man matched Creed's anger with his own, "he's not part of the mission, focus on that. We'll hold him till we have the package secured and then we'll be out of here. That's an _order_, mister."

"Logan, what's going on out here?" the door to Dr. Messler's office opened and a female poked her head into the anteroom. She was dressed like the others, in a black jumpsuit bristling with weapons. She had an exotic look about her, and long black hair that was neatly tied in a pony tail behind her head.

The one called Logan grabbed Werner as Creed reluctantly let him go. Logan pushed him toward the woman, who deftly contained him in a strong grip. "Keep an eye on this one, keep him quiet," Logan instructed. "Creed, door." Still growling, Creed turned back to the door into the hallway and quietly closed it, resuming his post guarding the door with grumbling acquiescence.

The woman pushed Werner into the Professor's main office. Once there he was relieved to see Dr. Messler, alive and well, but the office itself was a complete shambles. All of the tall windows that looked out over the courtyard were shattered. Broken glass littered the floor, a filing cabinet was toppled over, and the long, elegant red curtains were torn. One of the curtain rods was pulled out of the wall. A book case teetered precariously to one side, half of the books fallen onto the floor.

"Dr. Messler!" Werner cried out as the woman pushed him down into one of the chairs. Dr. Messler seemed unharmed, but he barely looked up to acknowledge Werner's presence. The head of the medical department was not his usual, precisely organized self. His normally neat silver hair was tousled, and his coat unbuttoned. He was frantically pulling papers out of some of the boxes on the floor, other papers were scattered about his desk, books were piled up on the floor, and a metal briefcase on his desk was overflowing with more papers than it could possibly hold. The bronze desk lamp was on the floor, along with the small Hungarian flag display. A fourth man, also dressed in black was sitting in Dr. Messler's chair, his black booted feet insolently propped up on the mahogany desk as he cradled a machine gun in his lap. He wore a terminally bored expression.

"Oh, hello, Werner," Dr. Messler said breathlessly with only a sideways glance at his startled pupil, "sorry about all this, my boy."

The man called Logan approached the other man in the chair, and placed Werner's pistol on the desk in front of him. "Check out this pop-gun the kid had, Maverick," Logan was saying. "It would have put a nice hole in Creed's hide if the rube hadn't left the safety on."

"Oh, ni-ice!" Maverick gushed with interest, dropping his feet off of the desk to inspect the hand gun. He laid his machine gun on the desk in such a way that he could swiftly grab it should he need to, but his attention was piqued by this smaller weapon. "A 9 mm Broom handle Mauser," he said, looking the weapon over enthusiastically. "Looks to be a Luftwaffe model, 1932. Beautiful. All original, missing the stock though. This is quite a rare piece you have," Maverick addressed Werner across the room, "what did the Professor call him?"

"Werner," Werner answered, "my name is Werner."

"He speaks English," the woman said with surprise.

"You're not English, are you American?" Werner asked her. She was stunningly beautiful, but coldly professional. He'd never met an American woman before. She handled the gun in her hand like a seasoned vet. He didn't know that women were also soldiers in America, and if the circumstances hadn't been more intense he would have asked her even more questions. But his throat tightened when she glared at him menacingly. He realized with insightful certainty that she was probably as dangerous as the man beast that had attacked him in the outer room.

"That's enough of that," Logan interjected, stepping away from the desk. "The less you know about us the better, bub."

Werner turned to address Dr. Messler in Hungarian, "Dr. Messler, what's going on? Who are these people?"

Dr. Messler looked up from his boxes and sighed, "I'm afraid I'm leaving, Werner," he explained. "The Soviet attack has sealed my fate, it will no longer be safe here for me and my family. But thanks to my latest research in gamma radiation, I've been offered asylum in the United States. Unfortunately, these men have left me insufficient time to pack my research papers!"

"Leaving? But what of the school? What will happen to us?"

"The school will continue of course, under the Soviets," Dr. Messler continued, "assuming they don't burn it to the ground in this infernal shelling. But being Soviets, they will rebuild, of course, when all this is over." Dr. Messler waved his hand, indicating the air above his head. He sighed and turned back to pulling files from his boxes. "I'm sorry, Werner, there's really no chance that you will be admitted to the medical school, you will just have to accept that. Not like there ever really was a chance. A gypsy boy? Impossible under the Hungarians, you see, even more so under the Soviets. I hope that I did not give you false hope. Now, everything changes. I will be better off in the Americas, you would do best to go back to your gypsies, or flee if you are able. You should never mention my name again, if you value your life." Dr. Messler tried to put some more papers in the overstuffed briefcase on his desk.

Werner was crushed by this callous rejection, and the implication that even if the Soviets hadn't attacked, he never would have been admitted to the school. It was worse than even the possibility of death at the hands of these commandos, or under the ruthless guns of the Soviet army. He was speechless, stunned and dejected.

"Time, Logan," the woman standing above him said.

Logan was alternately looking through the broken window, and watching the frantic searching of the professor. "I know, Silver Fox," he answered through gritted teeth. He glanced behind him. Maverick had busied himself taking apart Werner's gun, making rapid work of the tiny screws and springs, gleefully engaged in something other than watching the mad doctor sift through mountains of papers that no one but the doctor cared a fig about. But the weapon, that was something Maverick knew, and he field stripped and cleaned the old pistol with a born tinkerer's manic but precise abandon.

"Doctor, this is an extraction not a holiday excursion," Logan said gruffly to the professor.

"I realize that," the Doctor answered with some frustration, "but without my papers I cannot continue the research I've started here! You don't understand! This is years of work!"

"Done," said Maverick happily. He'd cleaned and reassembled the complex and elegant mechanism of Werner's Mauser pistol in record time, had anyone been timing him. He chambered a round, and lovingly placed the gun back onto the desk, carefully engaging the safety.

From outside the building there was a deep distant boom. An incoming round whistled outside, and the soldiers in the room went from relaxed tension into full battle mode in an instant. The explosion rocked the building, closer than ever before. Everyone in the room including Werner was knocked to the floor. Silt laden chalky debris rained down from above and there was black smoke billowing up from the courtyard below, filling the room through the open windows.

"That's it," Logan choked out. "We're leaving now!" The big man, Creed, entered quickly from the outer room even before Logan had shouted. As Werner finally saw Creed in the light he could see with relief that he was just a man. He could almost laugh now at the thought that what had attacked him earlier was a demon or monster of some sort. Later he would rationalize that the darkness had only made the big man seem like some sort of inhuman beast. Logan efficiently barked out orders, and the others jumped into action without question or pause, their roles well known and rehearsed. Werner could barely hear their leader's shouts over the ringing in his ears from the nearby explosion. He suddenly felt guilty for having left Cynthia alone and he hoped that she was all right. He was vaguely aware of Creed stepping over him to grab the professor, shoving the old man forcibly toward the broken windows. Maverick picked up the too full briefcase and closed it by pushing half of the papers piled inside it out onto the littered floor. He secured it with a snap and jumped to the windows. If Dr. Messler protested any of the lost papers, his complaints fell upon deaf ears. Silver Fox had already slid down one of the four ropes hanging outside of the windows, and the others quickly followed. There was a brief exchange between Creed and Logan standing by the smoke shrouded opening. Werner heard his name mentioned again. Then he heard the professor's voice one last time.

"He's just a gypsy," the professor was saying, "no one will believe him anyway."

And then Creed was taking Dr. Messler out the window, holding onto the professor with one arm as he lowered himself down the rope with the other. Only Logan remained in the smoke filled room.

Werner stood up, choking and coughing. Logan was calmly standing in front of him, there by the desk amidst the ruin of the professor's office. He picked up the hand gun Maverick had left on the desk, and Werner thought this was it, he was going to die now. To his surprise, Logan handed the pistol back to Werner, who gingerly took it. "Remember the safety next time you're in a fire fight. Good luck, bub," Logan said kindly, "you're gonna need it."

And then the small, stout soldier was leaping out the window onto his own rope, sliding down as easily as one might walk down a flight of stairs. Werner stood there for a moment as the dust and smoke settled, watching the four ropes quivering as they delivered their human cargo to the ground. Only when the ropes were no longer taut, and he could tell that they were moving only with the breeze, did he dare step up to the windows to look out and down into the courtyard below. Through the smoke he expected to be able to see something, but there was nothing there, not a soul in sight. It was as if the four black clad soldiers and their "package" had disappeared into the very haze of the burgeoning attack.

There was nothing more Werner could do here, and seeing the damage to the building he was suddenly quite anxious about Cynthia. He tucked the pistol into his belt and made his way rapidly back down the way he'd come, climbing over debris and leaping down the stairs two at a time.


	10. Chapter 10 Strength

**DOOMSAGA I: THE BOOK OF THE TAROT**

**Chapter Ten: _Strength_**

**Hungary, 1956**

Werner von Doom raced down the wide staircase through the smoke and haze to where he'd left Cynthia moments before. The hallway on the ground floor had seen some damage. The glass doors were blown inward and half off of their hinges by the explosion that had rocked him earlier on the second floor. But Cynthia had taken refuge behind a stout marble column further down the hall, and she came out of hiding as soon as she heard Werner calling out for her. Werner didn't notice that the geology display case behind him was blown open as he raced down the hallway to embrace Cynthia with breathless gratitude.

"Don't ever leave me like that again!" Cynthia cried out, beating on him with her fists even as she hugged him. "I was so worried about you, you could have died!"

"Never, I'll never do that again, I swear," Werner held her close. Another explosion rocked the building. They both ducked as dust and debris rained down on them from above. "We can't stay here!"

"What of Boris?"

"We'll have to try to find him, somehow," Werner led them out of the building through the broken doorway. They could hear the tanks, rolling through the streets now, and the pop of gunfire and voices shouting. In the distance across the courtyard there were more people running, some with guns. Werner couldn't tell if they were Soviet army or combatants. Fortunately they were far enough away that they didn't pay any attention to the fleeing gypsy couple. "We'll head for the river, try to get out on foot if we have to. Come on!"

There were soldiers with guns everywhere now, swarming the city like ants. Some were engaging pockets of rebel fighters, others were herding small groups of civilians into waiting trucks, and others were setting up barricades across select roads. Werner instinctively avoided them all as best they could, racing across open roads and disappearing into the shadows of broken buildings. Cynthia did better than that, though, she grabbed a familiar bramble in one hand as they ducked around a corner and dropped over a low wall into a garden behind a house. She said a quick incantation as Werner caught his breath, then crushed a few of the dry leaves over their heads.

Slightly annoyed, Werner brushed the leaves out of his hair. "What was that?" he asked her ungraciously.

"Protection," Cynthia answered. To anyone not looking directly at them, they would see only the leaves of a bush.

"Okay," Werner shrugged, not really buying into his lover's beliefs in gypsy magic and incantations, "but still, let's try to keep out of sight."

Cynthia just smiled sweetly, and followed along with him willingly. She wasn't offended by his pandering to her magic skills. She actually preferred that he didn't really believe anyway. It would be easier for him that way, later on.

Cautiously, Werner led the way, thankful for his intimate knowledge of the city and the back roads not often traveled. Still, they must have passed a dozen or more foot soldiers without being seen. Then they had to duck into a building to escape being caught up in the crossfire between a squad of soldiers and a well-armed group of Hungarian rebels. By such luck they found Boris.

"Boris!" Cynthia shouted as soon as they had crossed the threshold into the building. They were in a hardware store that was familiar to Werner. The door had been broken in and anything that could be used as a weapon had been stripped from the shelves by a rapidly moving mob. Boris was sitting by a window, an ax clutched in his hand. His bearded face had aged ten years in less than an hour. He looked wan and pained. Cynthia gasped. "Werner, come quickly! It's Boris! He's been hurt!"

Werner had paused by the broken door to see if anyone from the skirmish outside was following them, and he rushed over at Cynthia's urgent call.

"Thank God we've found you!" Werner said happily as he clasped a hand on the other's shoulder.

"The thanks are mine," Boris replied weakly. His face was covered in soot and sweat, his beard was streaked with gray dust. He had propped himself up on a ledge by the window so he could look out without being seen, but he'd been able to do no more than wait with the axe clutched desperately in his hands.

Werner then looked down and saw the dark stain that had saturated Boris' pant leg. He quickly dropped down to examine his friend's wound. He pulled a small knife from his bag and slit open the other man's pants leg from ankle to thigh, and he gasped slightly at what he saw. Boris had taken a bullet to his right knee. The bullet had gone clear through the leg and shattered his knee cap. He had lost a lot of blood. Werner immediately began to tend to the wound, but he knew that Boris was not walking out of here. He prepared a bandage to halt the bleeding, and instructed Cynthia to find something with which to make a splint. Cynthia made a fine nurse, she followed his directions readily and fearlessly, and she didn't cry and make a fuss over the sight of their friend's blood and mangled flesh. Werner was grateful for her steady bravery, when he questioned his own. Working on the wound with his familiar skills helped to quell the sense of panic he was feeling well up in his heart. They found some water and made a quick tonic that would help Boris to regain some of his strength. Outside, the brief firefight had moved further down the street.

Boris felt a little better, thanks to Werner's learned ministrations, but they both knew that he wasn't going to be able to walk very far. As Cynthia continued to look through the hardware store for anything they could use as a crutch to help him stand, Boris caught Werner by the arm and looked him in the eye. "You have to leave me," he said, "you'll never get out of here in time. I'll only slow you down."

"We won't leave you," Werner said firmly. "You're coming with us. You have to!"

"Listen, there's a motorbike, it's in a safe shed across the river, I can tell you where it is," Boris fished into his pocket for a key and pressed it into Werner's hand. "Go, take Cynthia, get out of here before it's too late!"

"No!" Werner said, taking the key but denying his wounded friends' wishes. "We won't leave without you."

Cynthia came back with a bit of wood, long enough for Boris to use as a cane. "What's this talk of leaving?" she demanded. "You're coming with us!"

"Cynthia, you could get the motorcycle, bring it back here, I'll stay with Boris," Werner suggested.

"No!" Cynthia protested. "We're not separating!" She didn't say "again", but Werner knew that's what she meant. "We all go together, or not at all!"

Outside an ominous rumbling sound drowned out any further protest. A huge tank rolled down the road outside of their window. Soldiers on foot flanked it on either side. The tank stopped, and a deafening boom sent the three gypsies to the floor as the tank fired its main gun down the embattled street. The soldiers beside the tank were crouched down covering their heads, but if they'd looked through the open door they would have seen the fleeing gypsies.

Without any further discussion, Werner placed his arm under Boris and half lifted, half dragged him to the back of the store. A back door opened onto an empty alley, too narrow for a tank to pass. They headed for the river, Boris hobbling along supported by Werner's strong shoulder and the makeshift crutch. But he was weak, and the going was slow. Cynthia stayed ahead of the pair, keeping a close watch out and continuing to urge Boris forward.

The Soviets had mounted a crushing attack on the city. They had entered the city from two sides, from the south and the north, pushing ever forward and squeezing the rebellion into a tight, inescapable circle. The rebels were valiant, but their efforts were fruitless against the heavy arms the Soviets brought to bear. One or two tanks were hobbled by brave men placing Molotov cocktails in their tracks, blowing the tread off until the machine could be rushed by the mob, its gunners pulled out and shot and the tank burned. Still others barricaded themselves behind block walls or engaged in running firefights. Block walls were blown away by heavy artillery or crushed under the treads of the Soviet tanks. The running skirmishes succumbed to the well-oiled and disciplined Soviet army. Thousands had died, the cold wet streets were warmed by their blood. But thousands of citizens had managed to escape in those first few hours and their exodus would continue throughout the night and on into the following days. With only the clothes on their back, they rushed blockaded streets and jumped walls, scurried down back roads and alley ways, crossed boggy fields, and swam icy cold rivers. Some were carrying children, or urging the little ones too big to carry to hurry along with them. They were all frightened, grown men, women and children alike. No one knew what the morrow would bring. Some holed up in churches or tiny outbuildings in farms outside the city, waiting for their chance to flee. The lucky ones headed west, toward Austria. Austria was freedom.

Werner, Cynthia and Boris headed east. It had taken them nearly an hour to go only a mile through the beleaguered city. They had miles still to go. Each passing step Boris had taken was more painful than the last. The fighting at least seemed to be far behind them. But Werner knew by the weak pulse on his friend that Boris would walk no further on his own. They stopped to rest by an old stone wall at the side of a road.

"How much further to the motorbike, Boris?" Cynthia asked as she offered him a bit of water from a flask she'd taken from the store.

Boris barely lifted his head. "Across the river," he said weakly. He closed his eyes.

Cynthia looked up at Werner with a worried expression that said, "What will we do?" Werner could only shake his head. Just as it seemed hopeless, a glimmer of hope reflected off the windshield glass of an on-coming car. Werner shielded his eyes against the glare. Cynthia was trying to pull Boris out of the road to take shelter behind the stone wall, but Werner was just standing there, in full view of whoever was driving toward them. Then suddenly Werner jumped out into the middle of the street and started waving his arms wildly.

"Werner!" Cynthia cried out. "What if it's the Soviets?"

"I know that car!" Werner explained excitedly, jumping up and down as he waved. He caught a glimpse of hawkish nose, pale complexion and round rimmed spectacles behind the wheel of the small two-door car. The car was driving as fast as it could, all of 30 miles per hour, blowing smoke every fifty feet, and sliding unsteadily on tires missing most their tread. But it was a car nonetheless, it was transportation out of here. Werner thought their salvation had arrived in that smoking, oil-burning jalopy.

"Hauptmann! Gert! It's me, Werner!" He yelled, jumping up and down. Hauptmann almost didn't stop, but he would have had to run over Werner, who was blocking most of the road. As it was, he barely stopped in front of the wildly jumping gypsy. The brakes on his old car were none too good, either. As soon as the car stopped, Werner raced over to the driver's side window and addressed his fellow student. "Thank the gods, you're here," Werner said breathlessly. "My friend is hurt, we need a ride across the border. Please, you've got to help us!"

Hauptmann glanced over the opening in the driver's side window. "Oh, it's you, that Von Doom."

"Yes, it's me," Werner's enthusiasm was pinched by Hauptmann's cold response. "Please, my friend will die if we don't get him out of here."

Hauptmann looked over to where the girl was kneeling next to a waxen faced gypsy man who'd passed out at the side of the road. "It looks like he's already dead," he said callously. "Besides, I haven't the room!"

"What?" Werner said, exasperated. There was a small back seat, with a few boxes and suitcases, but they could have squeezed in. "You've plenty of room here," Werner protested. "Please! I helped you once before on the road. Won't you return the favor?"

Hauptmann glared at Werner angrily. "You already asked me for that favor in return, and I granted it," he lied viciously. "This is no taxi and I said there is no room! You dirty gypsies can find another way out! Good day!" He haughtily ground the gears of his little car as he turned his gaze to the front with a set jaw that resolutely refused to acknowledge any further protestations. The little car lurched forward, and sputtered and coughed down the road, abandoning the gypsy trio to their fate in a plume of black, oil-laced smoke.

"Hauptmann, no! You can't! Hauptmann!" Werner cried after him as he drove off. "Hauptmann! Hauptmann!" He lifted his hands in the air pleadingly, but to no avail. The little car was quickly disappearing in the distance. "You … bastard!" Werner shouted after him. Under his breath he muttered a string of expletives through gritted teeth, hoping that Cynthia didn't hear. He could do nothing more than seethe in bitter anger. "I won't forget this, you bastard!" he thought.

Cynthia stepped up beside him and placed a calming hand upon his clenched fist. "It's all right, Werner," she said softly, "we'll find another way."

Werner fumed for a moment longer, then he calmed himself, finding some quiet, peaceful place in his soul to ward off the anger that threatened to engulf him in madness. He still had work to do. He turned back around to check on Boris. The older man had passed out, his pulse was weak. His strenuous exertions had renewed the bleeding in his leg. The bandages were soaked. Werner checked him over once more quickly. Then he handed his satchel and his hat to Cynthia, who silently placed the strap over her shoulder and the hat upon her own head. He removed his overcoat and placed it on Boris, buttoning it up to help keep his friend warm and hopefully ward off the threat of him going into shock. It was still quite cold out, and now Werner could feel the chill piercing his thin shirt. Then he steeled himself, crouched down, and hoisted Boris over his shoulder, one hand on Boris' arm and the other on his good leg. The wounded right leg with its makeshift splint dangled down around the small of Werner's back. Boris was a big man, he was no lightweight, and unconscious as he was now he was a dead weight on Werner's strong back. But Werner was tall, and strong. It was a good lift. Werner would carry him as far as he could.

"Let's go," he said calmly, and Cynthia dutifully led the way.

There was an old Roman bridge across the Danube. It was too narrow for most cars, far too fragile for a tank, and it led to a road that ended beyond the flatland of the farms in the forested hill country. In short, it was a bridge that most forgot. It was nearly dusk by the time they reached it, the short arc of the late fall sun had finished its work for the day. A smoky haze rose from the city at their backs, further obscuring the last weak rays of the sun. The sounds of gunfire and cannon shot had finally been replaced by the quiet hush of the countryside. But there were few buildings or trees out this way, no place to hide should an army truck or foot patrol decide to turn down this road in search of refugees or rebels. Soon too, the last of the gypsy caravans would be leaving from their campsite in the hills beyond, headed for the border with Latveria, with or without their leader Boris. Cynthia's Aunt Rebecca too, would the simple old woman leave with the others, or wait for her niece? To wait could mean she too would be trapped if the Soviet patrols started closing off the border crossings to the east. All of these thoughts plagued Werner as they walked along in silence. Werner quickened his pace the best he could, and was heartened only by the pulse he could still feel in Boris' dangling wrist, and the brave woman who stayed resolutely by his side.

Werner was nearly spent by the time they reached the farmhouse. Boris had described a shed by a copse of trees, a short way down from the road in a little hollow. It was a fine hiding place, most wouldn't know it was there until they were right upon it. They were lucky to find it with Boris still unconscious.

Werner stumbled down the rough dirt road to the door of the shed. Gently he lowered Boris to the ground beside the shed, Cynthia helped him. They leaned the gypsy leader against the gray slat wood sides of the small building. Werner stepped over and opened the twin doors just a crack to look inside the shed. He caught a glimpse of the gleaming headlight to the motorbike Boris had secreted away inside, staring back at him like an eye through the dim interior of the shed. Werner breathed a sigh of relief to finally have some good news that day, and then asked for his satchel back from Cynthia.

Cynthia gasped, "Oh Werner, your shirt! It's soaked with blood!"

Blood and sweat had mixed on his back, so the spread of blood looked worse than it actually was. But Boris leg had stopped bleeding, and his heart rate had stabilized some. Werner carefully undid the bandages, and rewrapped the knee, leaving out the splints they'd used earlier. "It'll be all right," he finally said. "The worst is over, once we get to the camp we'll get him warm and his strength will return in time. I'm afraid he'll always walk with a limp, though." Werner quietly accepted a bit of water and some late season berries Cynthia had picked at the side of the road. The short rest from his burden and the little bit of sugar had brightened his mood, too. The betrayal of Hauptmann seemed a lifetime away.

"Let's see if this motorbike will start," he said, and finally opened the twin doors to the shed fully upon their hidden prize.

"The key will start it," a voice inside said, "but you won't be riding it anywhere."

"Oh, no," Cynthia sighed with exhausted frustration.

Werner had just about had enough of disappointment for the day. It just didn't seem to end for him. Standing inside the shed beside the motorbike and side car were two of his former college chums, Franz and Gregorio. They had their traveling clothes on, and from the mess of wires pulled out of the ignition housing they had obviously been attempting to hot wire the bike as they had taken refuge inside the covered shed. But Werner was not going to let them steal it out from under him, not after all they'd been through that day.

Franz had a different idea in mind. The big man sneered at Werner, "I see you won the hand of your gypsy dancer," he said, leering at Cynthia. He motioned to Gregorio, who started to push the motorbike out of the shed. "Don't think I'll let you get the drop on me like before," Franz warned. He kept a safe distance from Werner, mindful of the last time they'd fought. He caught sight of Boris as they walked out of the shed pushing the motorbike in front of them. Werner backed up, but didn't take his furious eyes off of the two Hungarians, and his hands clenched into fists. "Looks like your dead gypsy friend won't be coming to your rescue this time either."

"He's not dead, and the bike is not yours," Cynthia protested, glaring at him with a fiery anger in her voice.

"Shut up," Franz growled.

Gregorio chimed in, "To the winners goes the spoils, chippie."

Werner was forced back as the two continued to push the motorbike out onto the rough roadway. He was silently weighing his options. His right hand disappeared into the satchel around his shoulder. It quickly found the gun. Without looking he placed his hand around the broom handle grip, and released the safety with his thumb. Then he placed his foot on the front of the side car, and pushed back against Gregorio, stopping the bike from moving any further.

"Let go of the bike, now," he intoned coldly.

"Or what, gypsy?" Franz answered fearlessly. "Two against one, Werner. And we're taking the motorbike to Austria. End of discussion."

"No, you're not," Werner felt the fury rise inside him again. He was tired, but more than that he was tired of being treated like a second class citizen. "I have the key, and the bike is ours."

"Then you'll give us the key," Franz snarled menacingly, and like a snake he reached out and grabbed Cynthia. Before she could pull away he spun her around and placed his thick arm around her slender neck. "Or I'll break your little whore's neck." Cynthia struggled against his hold, but the big man was strong, and he squeezed his arm ever tighter around her throat, choking her. With his free hand he reached out toward Werner, beckoning for him to give him the key. "The key, now, Werner!"

Werner felt the rage fully take hold of him then, and for the first time he let it. He would not back down, not anymore. His cool gray eyes burned with his righteous anger. He imagined in an instant all the ways that he could disable Franz and his associate Gregorio using only his hands, when a commotion behind him stopped them all.

"HALT!"

Franz and Gregorio went white, and stepped back, lifting their hands in the air. Cynthia gasped for air as Franz released her, and jumped away from him as best she could, collapsing to the ground near Werner's feet. Werner froze in his tracks as well and didn't turn around right away.

Boris had done an amazing job restoring the old BMW motorcycle and side car. It looked better than new, the black paint was polished to perfection and every bit of chrome glowed with flawless radiance. The distinctive bullet shaped side car in particular had gone from a rusting, bullet ridden hulk into a shiny, sleek projectile. So shiny, in fact that Werner could see the reflection of the Soviet soldiers on the road behind him in that mirror-like surface.

There were six Soviet soldiers in this small foot patrol. Four of the men were slightly staggered in the center; two were out on either side. They had no doubt been chasing rebels and refugees alike all afternoon, but as the day had waned they had found more harmless civilians than well armed fighters. As such they had grown a little careless. In their long march down the dusty back roads of the countryside they had found it easier to carry their weapons on their backs. Only two of the soldiers now had their guns out and pointed at the group they had found arguing by the shed. One of the other four had his weapon out but it was pointed lazily at the ground. The other three were no doubt resigned to having to detain more unarmed civilians for later "processing" by their commanders at the detention camp to determine if any of them were in collusion with the rebels. And to claim as forfeit any of their capitalist possessions that would now belong to the politburo, such as that fine German motorcycle they were obviously arguing over when the sound of voices raised in anger had alerted the foot patrol to venture down off of the main road. Two of the three remaining soldiers were also looking only at that shiny motorcycle rather than the men gathered around it. Perhaps they were thinking about riding the bike back to camp, rather than trudging along on another tiring, dusty march.

Then too, the small group the Soviet patrol had just captured hardly seemed much of a threat. The two men facing them were unarmed young men, their hands raised in obedient surrender as soon as the soldiers had approached. Those two young men wore expressions of abject fear, almost panic, upon their bloodless faces. If the patrol had managed to actually bring those two young men in, the soldiers would have been praised by their commanders for having detained two of the rebellions' most elusive and principal student leaders. But the soldiers had no idea at the time that they were in the midst of such a grand prize. One woman had fainted upon the ground; she was obviously of no great concern. One bearded man lying by the shed appeared to be dead. The dead man too, would have been well received by their commanders. Such were the vagaries of circumstance, that here in this distant field were three of the most wanted terrorists the Soviet army had been searching for, and for want of an experienced patrol they would have claimed them. And lastly the tall man with his back to the patrol was obviously wounded, as shown by the blood soaked shirt on his back. Maybe he was delirious, because he didn't seem to react at all when the soldiers arrived and began shouting orders at them. Even though he appeared to be the least dangerous of the group, he was in fact the most fearsome foe the soldiers would ever face. That, and the fact that the soldiers had already counted the group as captured, when they were far from it still.

All of this Werner observed in an instant of clarity and insight. With his anger still fresh and hot in his soul, he slowly turned around. His left hand was in the air, but his right hand was still inside the satchel. He knew exactly where each soldier was standing behind him, which ones were an immediate threat and which would take more than a split second to react. As he turned, he didn't even bother to remove the pistol in his right hand from the bag. He didn't hesitate or second guess. He just started firing. The powerful hand gun did the rest. Eight smoking rounds later four of the soldiers were dead, and two would soon be. Their wounds were fatal and their life blood slowly soaked the dusty earth around them as they choked on their last breaths in this world. So fast and surprising was his attack that Werner only missed twice, and not one of the soldiers managed to fire a single round in response. The muzzle of the pistol was sticking out of a round hole in the bottom of his bag, the blackened end still smoking.

He turned back around to face Franz and Gregorio, but now he pulled the pistol out of his bag and pointed it at his old school mates. He knew that there were still two rounds left in the gun. This time, Franz didn't have Cynthia to use as a shield or a hostage. Werner's eyes still blazed with his rage. He was no longer the gypsy healer, he was the vengeful knight of old. His face was a frightening mask of anger, retribution and steely determination. Franz and Gregorio dared not challenge him, not after what they'd just witnessed. Werner didn't say a word, he simply motioned with a slight wave of the end of the weapon. His old college mates backed up in silent acknowledgment, their hands still in the air, and when they were clear of the motorbike, the shed, and the road, they turned and ran across the open field, thankful that they still had their lives. Werner continued to watch them, the pistol raised at their fleeing backsides, until Cynthia's hand on his arm calmed him into finally lowering the gun.

He gasped as the anger drained from him, then struggled to catch his breath.

"Shhh, hush now love," she cooed softly, "we're safe now. Shhh …"

Werner finally looked at her, and he started shaking. The anger had left him, and he was afraid. The gurgling death rattle of the last dying soldier pierced the silence as the dusk settled all around them. He dared not look back at the carnage he had wrought, but that one death haunted him. With that dying soldier, so too died his innocence. He embraced Cynthia, wrapping her in his arms and feeling her life essence infuse him with hope again. His knees almost buckled, but Cynthia held on, helped him to stand and buoyed him up somehow. He closed his eyes and breathed in the softness of her hair and felt the strength of her faith and warm, honest love. It was the only thing that mattered.

Werner finally regained his composure and his control. "I'm ok," he whispered. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?" He brushed her long hair back from her face, and tenderly kissed her forehead with his trembling lips.

"No, no, I'm fine, thanks to you, we're fine," Cynthia assured him.

"Fine, ok, then," Werner looked down at the gun he still held in his hand, almost like it was alien to him. Then he carefully engaged the safety, and replaced it in the leather holster in his bag. He was a little annoyed at the hole in his bag, as if he didn't know how it happened. He could only think about how he would have to have it fixed, he really liked that satchel and it wouldn't do for it to be leaking his potions and supplies out of that hole. He dropped the satchel in the bottom of the side car and walked over to check on Boris. He didn't know it at the time, but he would never fire the gun again.

Boris lifted his head as Werner approached. "That was some shooting there," Boris said weakly. "Didn't know you had it in you."

"Frankly, neither did I," Werner admitted. Werner was surprised that Boris had been aware of what was going on. "But we're not home free yet. Can you stand?"

Boris pushed himself up with one arm, but it was clear he was still too weak, and Werner caught him and lifted him to his feet. He helped him hobble over to the waiting side car, and dropped him carefully into the seat. Cynthia found a jacket inside the shed and helped Werner into it. Werner was thankful, he was feeling the cold even more now, and they had a long ride still ahead of them. He zipped the leather jacket closed and sat down on the bike, familiarizing himself quickly with the controls. Werner fished the key out of his pocket, and the willing engine started up on the first kick. Cynthia took her place behind him on the plank seat, wrapping her arms around his waist. He deftly steered the bike and side car around the bodies of the dead Soviet soldiers, not looking at their faces, but knowing that they would haunt him for a long time. Then they turned up the main road, heading east toward Latveria.

They would catch up to the gypsy caravan later that evening. They didn't stop but kept moving through the night, their long train of gypsy caravans and old jalopies shrouded by the mountain darkness. They would see no more of the Soviet army. Werner tended to Boris all night as his caravan trundled up a mountain pass that was rarely traveled but well known to the gypsy travelers. The news of their flight soon swept through the gypsy convoy. Werner was hailed as a hero for having saved Boris and Cynthia from the Soviets, but Werner did not share the details of their harrowing escape from the besieged Hungarian city. Sometime in the early morning hours their little train crested the summit of the pass, and at first light they were in Latveria at last. Werner looked out on his homeland, the land of his birth that he had left so many years ago as a restless and adventuresome boy. He marveled at those lofty mountain peaks, and the wide serene valley down below. He could see in the warm alpine light of day the many familiar places he knew as a boy, and he found some comfort in feeling like he was coming home. He felt relief at last, and more than just a little sad. And exhausted, too. Boris was weak but he'd survive. Werner finally settled down in a corner with a blanket and let sleep overcome him. He slept a deep, dreamless sleep as they moved slowly into the last home he would ever know.

Cynthia also felt relief at finally arriving in this new world that she had oft dreamed about but had never known. She had reluctantly parted with Werner when they reached the gypsies that evening. Werner had Boris moved to his rolling bungalow with his relations so that he could continue to treat Boris' wounded leg. So she left him with a warm kiss as she retired with her aunt to their gaily painted caravan near the rear of the train. She was tired also, but happy that Werner was with them at last. Their time apart was welcome too, for it gave Cynthia a moment to be on her own, to reflect on all that had happened that day, and to put it into perspective with her dreams and visions. And, to finally secure her secret prize.

In the dark of the caravan interior, Cynthia opened her secret box, and the book with the hidden compartment that contained the two blue stones she had acquired in her travels. From a pocket in her skirt she produced a third blue stone, the one she had stolen that day from the University. When Werner had left her alone in the hallway of the geology building, she had used that time to free the blue gem stone from its ignominious display. She had known that as soon as she saw the glowing blue stone and the magic it displayed that she would not be leaving there without it. As soon as Werner had disappeared up the stairs, she leapt into action. Working quickly, she had used a tall metal ash can to break the display glass. But the blue gem was cemented into the larger meteor, and she no way to carry the entire rock in secret. No amount of prying would free the blue gem from its bed of stone. In a moment of crystal lucidity, Cynthia had pulled Werner's blue gem out from the pocket of his satchel. Where centuries worth of chipping and chiseling had never managed to free the blue stone in all the years that the meteorite had been passed down from one generation to the next, by simply placing Werner's blue gem next to the meteor the imbedded blue stone quite naturally oozed out of its thousand-year old bed inside the dense meteor rock and dropped into her hand. She had tucked this new blue gem into the pocket of her skirt, returned Werner's stone to his satchel, and had said nothing of it to Werner when he returned from Dr. Messler's office moments later.

Now safe inside her closed cabin, she placed the third stone next to its two sisters inside her book, but curiously there was no reaction at all. She had expected a brilliant display like the one she'd seen when Werner's stone had come close to the meteor's gem. She had seen a similar reaction when the two blue gem stones she originally had first came close to each other. But there wasn't even the faintest spark of life when she brought the three stones together. It was strange and unexpected, and she was more than a little disappointed. She examined the stones again. They were identical in every way. She didn't understand. Perhaps there was some required order to these things, or maybe once they flashed so brilliant, they would never do so again. Still, she had to believe that there was something magical or mystical about these blue glass gems of light and energy. She would find out. And that fourth stone? She had no doubt that Werner would soon give it to her.

She carefully hid the three gems away in her strong box, and climbed back outside to greet the new day and see this new country they were entering for the first time. She sat on the plank next to Rebecca, and quietly took in the majesty of this tiny, hidden nation where they hoped to find lasting refuge. As their pack horses pulled the caravan down the sides of the Latverian steppes, jostling and bouncing, she had a calming premonition. Maybe she would never know what the blue gems were, and maybe she would never be able to harness their secret power. But her son would. She smiled. Yes, that was a comforting thought. Her son would know. She gazed out on the green lush valley before them and for the time being she embraced her future.


End file.
